Addressing Needs of Patients While Stemming the Tide of the Opioid Crisis

Posted on May 14, 2018 by FDA Voice

By: Scott Gottlieb, M.D.

The biggest public health crisis facing FDA is opioid addiction. Not a day goes by in my role at FDA without hearing stories of the emotional, physical, and financial toll this epidemic is taking on Americans.

FDA is committed to making every possible effort to stem the tide of this crisis. A little over a year ago, I announced a redoubling of that commitment through the formation of the Opioid Policy Steering Committee (OPSC). This group, comprised of the agency’s most senior leaders, was tasked with developing new approaches to impacting this crisis. One overarching goal of the committee was to develop new policy solutions to reduce overall exposure to opioids, prevent new addictions, and support the development and use of better FDA-approved medications to treat those with opioid use disorder.

Part of this effort resulted in two important actions led by the OPSC. In September 2017, FDA solicited public input on how the agency’s authorities could be used to address the crisis. A meeting in 2018 was held to solicit specific input on how FDA’s actions could assist more appropriate prescribing.

These actions generated a wide range of feedback, and they included the important voices of the patients. The feedback we received affirmed for us that as we address this crisis, we wouldn’t lose sight of the needs of Americans living with chronic pain or coping with pain at the end of life.

We’ve heard the concerns expressed by these individuals about having continued access to necessary pain medication, the fear of being stigmatized as an addict, challenges in finding health care professionals willing to work with or even prescribe opioids, and sadly, for some patients, increased thoughts of or actual suicide because crushing pain was resulting in a loss of quality of life.

We’re focused on striking the right balance between reducing the rate of new addiction while providing appropriate access to those who need these medicines. In some medical circumstances, opioids are the only drugs that work for some patients. This might include patients with metastatic cancer or severe adhesive arachnoiditis. Today, to address these goals and challenges, we announced an upcoming meeting focused solely on the needs of those suffering from chronic pain.

This public meeting is an opportunity for FDA to hear directly from patients, including adult and pediatric patients. We want to hear their perspectives on the impacts of chronic pain, their views on treatment approaches for chronic pain, and the challenges or barriers they face accessing treatments.

As FDA learns more about the types of chronic pain that are managed with analgesic medications such as opioids, acetaminophen, NSAIDs, antidepressants, other medications, and non-pharmacologic interventions or therapies, we gain valuable insight into strategies FDA can adopt to help strike the right balance between policies that allow appropriate prescribing for those in true need of these medicines and preventing unnecessary exposure to opioids that can increase the rate of new addiction.

For example, one idea FDA is considering is the development of a strategy for encouraging medical professional societies to develop evidence-based guidelines on appropriate prescribing for different acute medical indications, how to assess the scientific support for these guidelines and impact on prescribing behavior, and considering the possibility of incorporating new prescribing information in opioid analgesic labeling. We believe such guidelines could encourage the use of an appropriate dose and duration of an opioid for some common procedures and promote more rational prescribing, including that patients are not being under prescribed and patients in pain who need opioid analgesics are not caught in the cross hairs. In short, having sound, evidence-based information to inform prescribing can help ensure that patients aren’t over prescribed these drugs; while at the same time also making sure that patients with appropriate needs for short and, in some cases, longer-term use of these medicines are not denied access to necessary treatments. We will take the first steps toward developing this framework in the coming months, with the goal of providing standards that could inform the development of evidence based guidelines.

We’re also going to be creating a new series of guidance documents focused on laying out an efficient, modern pathway for development of drugs targeted to the treatment of various types of pain. These will be up-to-date policies that focus on the treatment of specific areas of pain. This will allow us to tailor our requirements to the indications for which pain treatments are being developed. The aim will be to modernize FDA’s current guidance on analgesic drugs, to promote more new drug innovation.

As we address the opioid crisis with new approaches, and take more vigorous steps to confront addiction, we can’t lose sight of patients who have appropriate needs for these medicines. This meeting is one of many steps we’re taking to make sure we protect the needs of patients with chronic and acute pain even as we take new actions to reduce overall prescribing and dispensing of opioid medicines.

Scott Gottlieb, M.D., is Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Follow Commissioner Gottlieb on Twitter @SGottliebFDA