FDA approves home naloxone

~ Jason Schwartz

040314_evzio2

This is good news and could save a lot of lives:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved a prescription treatment that can be used by family members or caregivers to treat a person known or suspected to have had an opioid overdose. Evzio (naloxone hydrochloride injection) rapidly delivers a single dose of the drug naloxone via a hand-held auto-injector that can be carried in a pocket or stored in a medicine cabinet.

It is intended for the emergency treatment of known or suspected opioid overdose, characterized by decreased breathing or heart rates, or loss of consciousness.

. . .

Evzio is injected into the muscle (intramuscular) or under the skin (subcutaneous). Once turned on, the device provides verbal instruction to the user describing how to deliver the medication, similar to automated defibrillators. Family members or caregivers should become familiar with all instructions for use before administering to known or suspected persons to have had an opioid overdose. Family members or caregivers should also become familiar with the steps for using Evzio and practice with the trainer device, which is included along with the delivery device, before it is needed.

I’d like to see every single first responder carry naloxone and have no objection to it being widely available to the public. At the same time, the idea of families buying this is just so sad. Especially when it high quality treatment of the adequate duration and intensity is out of reach to many of them.

It’s also a little strange to see this product coming out when a nasal mist has been demonstrated to be effective.

 

Published by Jason Schwartz

I have been an addiction professional and social worker since 1994. I started blogging in 2005 as the Clinical Director at Dawn Farm. I no longer work at Dawn Farm and am now the Director of Behavioral Medicine at a community hospital, and a lecturer at Eastern Michigan University’s School of Social Work. Views expressed here are my own. Keep in mind that the field, the contexts in which the field operates, and my views have changed over time.

2 thoughts on “FDA approves home naloxone”

    1. It’s sad because they so often can’t access adequate treatment. It’s like a cardiac patient in need of a bypass and we just give them a defibrillator.

      I get that this has FDA approval. I was just commenting that it was weird to see this gadget that does an actual injection getting approval before the intranasal mist, requiring no injection.

      Like

Comments are closed.