News FDA Approves Narcan for Over-The-Counter Sales

[RUC4]

FDA Approves Narcan for Over-The-Counter Sales

New York Times
Jan Hoffman
29 March 2023

excerpts:

Narcan, a prescription nasal spray that reverses opioid overdoses, can now be sold over the counter, the Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday, authorizing a move long-sought by public health officials and treatment experts, who hope wider availability of the medicine will reduce the nation’s alarmingly high drug fatality rates.

The nasal spray reverses opioid overdoses and public health officials hope that making it more widely available could save lives and reduce the nation’s high rates of drug fatalities.

By late summer, over-the-counter Narcan is expected to be for sale in big-box chains, supermarkets, convenience stores, gas stations and online retailers. New York City plans to install Narcan vending machines later this year.

 

[Electrum1]

This could be good for Indivior stock which is who bought Opiant, the company that owns Narcan

 

[Juicewrldfan]

Like really? It took them this ducking long to approve this over the counter? Gotta love the good ol’ FDA

 

[Electrum1]

Like really? It took them this ducking long to approve this over the counter? Gotta love the good ol’ FDA

Yeah the FDA wanted to see if nasal naloxone was better I guess before approving either one

From May 2022

Opiant Pharmaceuticals’ opioid overdose drug candidate has held its own against nasal naloxone in a trial of healthy volunteers, giving the company the data it needs to file for approval in the second half of the year.

The candidate, OPNT003, is a nasal formulation of nalmefene. The FDA approved an injectable form of the molecule in the 1990s, but that product was removed from the market in 2008. Opiant decided to try to resurrect the molecule in a nasal delivery format in the belief its half-life and affinity for opiate receptors may make it better than naloxone at treating overdoses on synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.