A sign hangs in front of the world headquarters of Vertex Pharmaceuticals in Boston.
Brian Snyder | Reuters
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ non-opioid painkiller pill, a new alternative for pain relief that comes without the risk of addiction.Â
Vertex is now the first drugmaker in decades to gain U.S. approval for a new type of pain medicine. It’s a milestone after a long history of mostly unsuccessful efforts to develop painkillers without the destructive dependency of cheap and widely available opioids, which have caused a horrific epidemic of abuse and overdose in the U.S.
Vertex’s drug, Journavx, is specifically approved for the treatment of moderate-to-severe acute pain, which is usually caused by injury, surgery, illness, trauma or painful medical procedures and likely eases with time. Around 80 million patients are prescribed a medicine for their moderate-to-severe acute pain every…
