I respectfully disagree. The NYT paid the author, Gina Kolata, to research and write the story, which contains more details than just the press release alone, then used their platform to made the news widely available and thus helped people like me discover it.
As cynical as one may be about the state of contemporary journalism, I'd say that short articles like this are still something good that comes out of newspapers in 2025, and I hope it doesn't go away just yet.
Given how late in the article it is mentioned that the drug was indistinguishable from placebo, this NYT article may well have been commissioned by Vertex.
My impression is that the "indistinguishable from placebo" is only in reference to a study on people with Sciatica, but that a different study did show a statistically-significant effect on post-surgical pain.
$465 USD for a 15-day supply definitely pricey -- but options for people who weren't well-served by Purdue Pharma / OxyContin seem good, especially if the mechanism of action is different.
Middlemen like town criers and nowadays "journalists" were useful when distributing information en masse quickly was a tremendous if not next to impossible logistical challenge.
Today when anyone can get information straight from the source instantly, we do not need these middlemen. There is no reason for this to be an NYT link, nor any other middleman link.
The less players there are in the game of telephone the more accurate the information will be.
We can’t get the information from the source unless we know it’s there. That’s the service an algorithm will invisibly produce for us even after we murder the last logo between us and The News
(2024) "Pharmacology and Mechanism of Action
of Suzetrigine, a Potent and Selective NaV1.8 Pain
Signal Inhibitor for the Treatment of Moderate
to Severe Pain" (pdf)
There is at least one: in its quest to promote the agency they forgot to list the most basic issue that makes this approval noteworthy - addiction. Also there is no price and a bunch of other relevant info
There is a lot more information and background for the layperson in the NYT article. But free sources should also be included for those without a subscription.
I respectfully disagree. The NYT paid the author, Gina Kolata, to research and write the story, which contains more details than just the press release alone, then used their platform to made the news widely available and thus helped people like me discover it.
As cynical as one may be about the state of contemporary journalism, I'd say that short articles like this are still something good that comes out of newspapers in 2025, and I hope it doesn't go away just yet.