Schering Plough opiate substitution drug gains backing

Schering-Plough’s Suboxone substitution treatment for dependence on opiates, including heroin, has gained the backing of the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency.

The tablet is for use in therapy where the misuse of opiates is replaced with an oral opioid medication, such as buprenorphine or methadone. Suboxone is intended to help patients to stop misusing opiates intravenously as part of a wider treatment encompassing medical, social and psychological elements.

The recommendation will be taken into consideration by the EC when it decides whether to approve the drug for medical use. An approval could result in the drug treating some of the estimated 1.1 million intravenous drug users in Europe.

“The CHMP recommendation of Suboxone is welcome news for the patient and medical communities in Europe that manage opioid dependence,” says Marc Auriacombe, professor of psychiatry and addiction medicine at the University Victor Segalen Bordeaux in France.

“Opiate dependence is a disease that can be treated medically in combination with psychosocial support. The addition of a new safe and effective buprenorphine sublingual formulation that was expressly designed to reduce the potential for misuse represents an important advance, both medically and socially.”

The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse recently released figures indicating that older people are increasingly seeking help for addiction to heroin and other drugs. It discovered a 13 per cent rise in the number of over-45s being treated for heroin addiction in England between April 2004 and March 2006.

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