Britannia anti-opiate addiction drug to undergo new trials

Lofexidine, the non-addictive drug used to detoxify patients with opiate addictions, is the subject of a new clinical trial involving 264 patients in the US.

The drug was developed by Britannia Pharmaceuticals and licensed to US WorldMeds, a Kentucky-based pharmaceutical company which is testing the drug to gain US approval.

Currently the only non-addictive, non-opiate treatment approved in the UK to manage opiate withdrawal symptoms, US WorldMeds claims that Lofexidine has treated approximately 200,000 patients in the UK, where it is marketed as Britlofex.

Paul Breckinridge Jones, chief executive officer of US WorldMeds, said that the distressing symptoms of opiate withdrawal are a “major impediment” to the desire to quit.

“Lofexidine will give a new option to hundreds of thousands of people who are struggling with addictions to heroin and widely prescribed opiate based pain medications such as OxyContin,” he stated.

Britannia estimates that Lofexidine is used in 20,000 patients every year in the UK. In 2002, a phase III trial for the drug in the US was halted because the data safety monitoring board concluded that such was the efficacy of Lofexidine, it would be “unethical” for those receiving the placebo to continue the trial.