FDA Approves New Device that Injects Naloxone Drug to Reverse Heroin Overdose

Announced shortly after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's call for greater access to naloxone, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a device called Evzio to inject the overdose antidote.

The newly FDA-approved Evzio could be prescribed to family members or caregivers to keep in their possession in the event of a heroin/opioid related episode. Heroin and prescription opioid abuse is a widespread issue in the United States, with countless reports stemming from the New England area to Tennessee to California.

Nearly one-third of Americans suffer from chronic pain; an ailment that can require the prescription of opioids to help ease the pain. Many medical and health experts believe that this could be one of the main causes for the doubling of opioid prescriptions from 2000-2010. Unfortunately, the rise in prescriptions has resulted in addiction and misuse of the drug.

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health released a study back in September that documented the reality of opioid overprescriptions, addiction, and misuse. They noted that nearly half of the country's 164 million pain visits were treated with a pain reliever, with 20% being prescribed an opioid. Not only is this costly for the health care industry, but it also an easily abused drug, which has led to all of these problems.

Now the issue has reached the federal level. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder believes that a balanced approach to mitigate the heroin problem is the best solution. Education and enforcement for drug abusers, particularly heroin and opioids, will mitigate the issue more effectively than large-scale arrests and imprisonments, which were the main focus during times when crack was abused.

Evzio is described as an easy-to-use device that injects the naloxone drug to reverse overdose effects in these specific patients. When the device is turned on, it provides directions to the user and helps guide them through its utilization. This could be very cost effective, as many police departments have to train their officers and first-responders to administer naloxone. The training process might now be even shorter and cheaper with the FDA approval of Evzio.

"While the larger goal is to reduce the need for products like these by preventing opioid addiction and abuse, they are extremely important innovations that will help to save lives," FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said, in this Guardian news article.