FDA to Hold Public Meeting on Opioids

As part of FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s commitment to deal with what has been called an opioid epidemic in the United States, the commissioner announced a public meeting to be held July 10–11, 2017. The focus of the meeting will be to gain information from the public on the impact of products that have abuse-deterrent properties.

Products with abuse-deterrent properties are designed to deter abuse, and the companies that make these products are required to conduct studies to provide FDA with data on their effectiveness. At the July meeting, the agency plans to discuss how it can use existing data sources and methods to evaluate real-world use of these products and possibly create new sources and methods for obtaining more data.

“The FDA is committed to looking at all facets of this complex issue and collaborating on various approaches, as there are no simple answers to reverse this epidemic … We need better scientific information to understand how to optimize our assessment of abuse deterrent formulations; and I look forward to a productive discussion on how to best tackle this challenge,” Gottlieb stated in a press release.