Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ non-opioid painkiller comes without the potential risk of addiction.
Transcript:
Conway Gittens: Wall Street heads into the weekend with modest strength – and that’s no small feat given how the week began. Apple is giving investor confidence a boost. The company beat forecasts even though quarterly iPhone sales were disappointing. On the inflation front, the personal consumption expenditures index, or PCE, rose in December. It was up 2.6 percent from the same time a year ago, which was inline with forecasts.
Turning to other business headlines, in what is being hailed as a major breakthrough in pain management science, a new painkiller with blockbuster potential has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a Boston-based biotech company, has come up with a safer alternative to opioids. The approved drug, which goes by the name of Journavx, is approved to treat moderate to severe acute pain. So it will be helpful for those dealing with pain due to sickness, injury, or the aftermath of surgery. It is the first new type of painkiller to get FDA approval in more than 20 years.
What makes Journavx stand out is how different it works compared to opioids. The drug attacks pain at the source, rather than go directly to the brain to block the feeling of pain. This means that it does so without creating an addictive feedback mechanism for the brain like opioids do. Opioids, though an effective class of drugs, have been blamed for sparking an epidemic of addiction and deaths in the hundreds of thousands. For Vertex CEO, Dr. Reshma Kewalramani, “We have the opportunity to change the paradigm of acute pain management and establish a new standard of care.”
The wholesale price for the twice-daily treatment starts at $15.50 per pill.
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