FDA approves first new type of pain medication in 25 years

A new pain relief drug, suzetrigine, is a prescription pill that’s taken every 12 hours after a larger starter dose. It will be sold under the brand name Journavx.

The US Food and Drug Administration signed off Thursday on the first new type of pain reliever to be approved in more than two decades. The drug, suzetrigine, is a 50-milligram prescription pill that’s taken every 12 hours after a larger starter dose. It will be sold under the brand name Journavx. “A new non-opioid analgesic therapeutic class for acute pain offers an opportunity to mitigate certain risks associated with using an opioid for pain and provides patients with another treatment option,” Dr. Jacqueline Corrigan-Curay, acting director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a news release. “This action and the agency’s designations to expedite the drug’s development and review underscore FDA’s commitment to approving safe and effective alternatives to opioids for pain management.” Government surveys show that analgesics, or medications that control pain, are the most commonly prescribed type of drug in hospitals. About 80 million Americans fill prescriptions each year for medications to treat new instances of moderate to severe pain, according to a study by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, the company that developed the new drug; about half those prescriptions are written for opioid medications, which can lead to dependence and addiction. Suzetrigine is the first new painkiller approved in the US since Celebrex, a type of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug called a Cox-2 inhibitor, which was approved in 1998.