Addiction drug development activity doesn’t reflect the need

Though drug addiction and substance use disorders remain the biggest public health crisis in the U.S. — before and since the waning of the pandemic — biopharmas have not jumped in with remotely the same enthusiasm. That doesn’t mean there’s a lack of innovation, and the trickle of companies taking products into the clinic are using a range of novel approaches to tackle the complex disorders.

On The BioCentury Show this week, Nora Volkow, director of NIH’s National Institutes on Drug Abuse discussed the reasons so few companies are in the space, placing structural issues such as lack of reimbursement, and the persistent stigma associated with addiction, center stage. ...