A novel painkiller approved Thursday by the FDA promises to relieve post-surgical suffering while avoiding the addictive qualities of opioid medications.
Boston-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals, which developed the oral treatment called Journavx for people with moderate to severe acute pain, says it’s “the first new class of pain medicine approved in more than 20 years.”
It is a big step in developing painkillers without the risk of addiction, says Ganesh Thakur, chair of Northeastern’s Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
“This is definitely a major advancement in pain management because this is a first of its kind,” says Thakur, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences who has worked in pain and addiction research for two decades.
“This is a very powerful compound that works on acute pain,” he says, defining acute as short-term conditions such as post-surgical pain.
Journavx works by blocking pain signals in the peripheral nervous system before they reach the brain, unlike opioids. Opioid medications such as Vicodin and OxyContin work on receptors in the brain and end up triggering powerful reward systems.
