In Anticipated Study, Monthly Opioid Treatment Shown To Be About As Effective As Daily Pill
But the monthly treatment is more difficult because participants have to wean themselves off opioids for a period of three days before they could start taking Vivitrol. Because of that hurdle, patients failed to start on Vivitrol at four times the rate that they did on the daily medication Suboxone.
The New York Times:
Study Finds Competing Opioid Treatments Have Similar Outcomes
A long-awaited study has found that two of the main medications for treating opioid addiction are similarly effective, a finding likely to intensify the hard-fought competition between drugmakers seeking to dominate the rapidly expanding opioid treatment market. The study, funded by the federal government, compared Vivitrol, which comes in a monthly shot and blocks the effects of opioids, and Suboxone, which is taken daily in strips that dissolve on the tongue and contains a relatively mild opioid that helps minimize withdrawal symptoms and cravings. (Goodnough and Zernike, 11/14)
The Washington Post:
Medications To Kick Opioid Addiction Are Equally Effective, Study Finds
The first major head-to-head comparison of medically assisted treatment approaches confirms that users now have two research-based options, according to the team of scientists led by Joshua D. Lee and John Rotrosen of New York University Medical School. But each method also showed a distinct disadvantage. (Bernstein, 11/14)
The Wall Street Journal:
Opioid Addiction Study Finds The Drug Vivitrol, Once Begun, Is As Effective As Suboxone
“What is new, and what the study was really about from our perspective, was: What happens if you are able to get people onto one or the other medication?” said his colleague, John Rotrosen, another leader of the study and a physician and psychiatry professor at New York University School of Medicine. “What we were really hoping, and what we found was...the two medications would be sufficiently equal, so providers and patients and families really recognized they have a choice,” he said. (Whalen, 11/14)