The approval “is an important milestone for public health in acute pain management,” said Jacqueline Corrigan-Curay, JD, MD, acting director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in a statement. “A new non-opioid analgesic therapeutic class for acute pain offers the possibility of reducing certain risks related to the use of an opioid for pain and offers patients a different treatment option.”
The company behind the medicine, Vertex, said that a 50 mg pill that works for 12 hours will have a wholesale costs of $ 15.50, which means that the daily costs $ 31 and the weekly cost $ 217. The costs are higher than cheap, Generic Opioids. But a report from the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review estimated in December that Suzetrigine would be “somewhat cost -effective” compared to opioids if the price was set at $ 420 a week, given the ability of the drug to prevent opioid addiction cases.
In a statement, Reshma Kewalramani, the CEO and President of Vertex, the approval trumpeted as a “historical milestone for the 80 million people in America who are prescribed a medicine every year for moderate to severe acute pain … [W]e have the possibility to change the paradigm of acute pain management and to determine a new healthcare standard. “
