Costs of Pain Management
Why Focus on Opioid Development?
For moderate-to-severe pain, traditional opioids are among the very few options medical professionals have available. Alternative solutions, such as non-pharmaceutical therapies, non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, acetaminophen, and other non-opioid analgesics lack sufficient strength to effectively relieve moderate-to-severe pain reliably. Moreover, these alternative solutions come with their own drawbacks and side effects.
Opioids often remain the only option for moderate-to-severe pain, despite traditional opioids’ adverse effects. However, these opioids are best used short-term because they rapidly induce tolerance and, very often, addiction.
Traditional opioids, even when used for chronic pain, are less effective in dealing with the numerous pain states having significant involvement of the inflammatory cascade and subsequent sensitization of pain pathways. These conditions include major public health problems, such as low back pain, arthritis, and neuropathic pain. Consequently, pain is often inadequately managed, leading to it being a major public health problem in the United States, impacting patients, healthcare providers and economies at a cost to society of $560-$635 billion annually; that is equivalent to $2,000 per person living in the U.S each year.
Despite aggressive efforts to control pain, over 100M Americans suffer from chronic pain, affecting more Americans than diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined.
Opioid Epidemic
An estimated 2.1 million people in the U.S. abuse opioids, with 80% of U.S. individuals addicted to opioids having first received opioids from their physician. The U.S. government has declared this a public health crisis: appropriately termed, the Opioid Epidemic.
Opioid Facts
Opioid analgesics are the most commonly prescribed class of medications in the U.S.
More than 30% of Americans have some form of acute or chronic pain
9.6-11.5 million U.S. adults (3 to 4% of total population) were prescribed longer-term opioid therapy in 2014
1 in 4 people receiving prescription opioids long-term struggle with addiction
Over 2,100 individuals used opioids for the first time in 2015