[peakai]

Build the poison, with the antidote to (much) later follow ... A perfectly sound business model. Reinforce the pathways that ensure that an industry's products (prescription drugs) will never fall out of vogue as the mechanism to solve all of people's problems, and make (a lot of) money all the while. Subjugation through palliation, a textbook case.

[pizzazzaro]

Remember when Oxycontin was supposed to be a pain pill that was "impossible to get addicted to"? Yeah... I'm trusting this "relief measure" about as much as I trusted that line in the 90s.

This is just gonna be their new wave of "milder" Oxy, that people get hooked on first. Sure, we're sold that its for helping things now... But give it a few years and this will be just another prescription opiate slung by street dealers. "Oh its safer!"

Methadone is addictive too. And so is this filth.

[tmp-20150107]

Buprenorphine has been available for as long as oxycontin. Subutex (the trade name) is sold on the street, and is a commonly abused drug in UK prisons currently, usually as fractions of a pill taken nasally.

Really, this patent is nothing to do with the drugs involved - even the idea of adding Naloxone isn't new, this is available as Suboxone, nor is the idea of sub-lingual administration. As far as I can tell what is being patented is administration in a gelatin-film matrix that dissolves very quickly, preventing diversion and resale on the street.

Remember that these drugs are not just handed out as a month's supply of pills like you would get antibiotics. Instead, they are 'supervised delivery' where the user must take the pill in front of a pharmacist. The fear is that if the pill takes 5m to dissolve, then it could be spit out and sold on once the pharmacy or treatment center has been left, so dissolving in seconds prevents this. Personally, I'm not convinced this is a problem except perhaps in prisons (see above) but then I'm also not convinced the idea is patentable...

[blattimwind]

> Remember when Oxycontin was supposed to be a pain pill that was "impossible to get addicted to"? Yeah... I'm trusting this "relief measure" about as much as I trusted that line in the 90s.

Huh? Oxycodone is extremely addictive, just like every other opioid. This has been well known since always.

[0xcde4c3db]

I don't know that they ever flat-out phrased it as extremely as "impossible to get addicted to", but Purdue Pharma definitely made puffed-up claims that the extended-release nature of OxyContin drastically lowered addiction potential compared to immediate-release opioids. They were fined $600M for aggressively misleading marketing about its addiction potential and reduced side effects [1].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/business/11drug-web.html

[darpa_escapee]

Buprenorphine has been on the streets for years. This article talks about yet another buprenorphine formulation.

[tmp-20150107]

It's been known forever that all opiates are addictive, varying only by degree to some extent. At least with Methadone there was the excuse that it was chemically different...

[anewone]

While that was my first thought on reading the headline, consider this scenario:

Man makes a drug to help people in pain. Turns out this comes with some nasty side effects. Feeling guilty, he works on a way to help undo what he made.

Not that I believe this was the case, but this is a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation.

[DanBC]

They also make Symproic, a treatment for constipation which is a common side effect of opioid use.

[lsllc]

Isn't this the plot for various Mission Impossible and James Bond movies? (and the sub-plot behind the ever-excellent V for Vendetta)?

... couldn't they at least give them good names? (e.g. Chimera & Bellerophon from MI:2).