You can find the parents for SR-17018 on Pubmed here:
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Sr-17018#section=Depositor-Supplied-Patent-Identifiers
Take this with a grain of salt but I read a comment I think on reddit claiming someone reached out to the patent holders for SR-17018 who are apparently in California, and they responded to say they had reached out to the US government about it's potential as a detox medications to aid the opioid crisis.
Ah, OK. It was developed by a Chinese team (AFAIK) but I can absolutely believe a US company would buy up the rights.
I am in no way suggesting that it has no utility as a novel medication for detoxification but I AM reminded that when the Reckit-Coleman team at Edinburgh led by KW Bentley trialled buprenorphine for opiate detoxification, it was only ever intended to be used for 7-14 days and I suggest the same may be true for this drug. But of course, a medication only prescribed by specialists and only prescribed for one to two weeks isn't going to be particularly profitable. Hence we see people being 'parked' on buprenorphine as previously people were parked on methadone. Will people be parked on SR-17018 because if the goal is profit, the likely answer is 'yes'.
I did post links to all the academic papers I could find (but not the actual patent) and it appeared that first it was trialled as an alternative to oxycodone in the treatment of severe chronic pain but simply was not potent enough. That was the only HUMAN trial I could find.
But they did perform some primate studies and it was noted that tolerance did occur. To a far lesser extent than 'classic' MOR ligand, but bias means just that. It doesn't totally eliminate beta 2 arrestin recruitment. I should add that tolerance was noted by physilogical changes in response - things that the body does. Not by any sort of preference or self-administration test.
A few people asked my opinion via PM and I simply suggested that in the absence of large human studies, the lowest dose used for the shortest time would likely result in the best outcomes. I mean, that's true of ALL medicines but we simply don't know what mixing SR-17018 with a traditional MOR would do. Would it blockade the receptors in a similar way to methadone and bupeanorphine? I don't know. But having worked in HR for 25+ years, I think we know that quite a lot of people who are provided with substitution therapy 'cheat' (it that is the right term). If someone has been bang at it for years, it's not a sign of weakness, most users are self-medicating for emotional and/or physical pain. So I would always remind clients that it doesn't matter how many times you fall over, as long as you get back up and keep walking.
It WOULD be amazing if this medication provides total relief from all AWS symptoms but we don't know if it works as well the second time, the third time...
So a LOT of work is still needed. As it stands, we have a lot of important lessons to learn.
