Pharmacy Daily | Gabapentinoid abuse up

THE US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is actively looking into the potential misuse and abuse of gabapentinoids, a class of drugs that includes Pfizer's Neurontin (gabapentin) and Lyrica (pregabalin), which have been approved to treat a number of conditions such as postherpetic neuralgia, fibromyalgia and neuropathic pain.

The new focus is part of the FDA's measures to proactively identify emerging issues related to prescription drug abuse, especially the ongoing opioid overdose epidemic.

FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb (pictured) speaking at a public workshop on strategies for the safe use and appropriate prescribing of opioids, said he was focused on reducing the number of patients who became addicted to prescription drugs by looking to new sources of abuse and stronger risk-management tools.

According to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), deaths from drug overdoses rose more than 20% from 2015 to 2016.

"Of the roughly 64,000 overdose deaths in the US in 2016, more than 42,000 were attributable to opioids, with 40% of those cases involving prescription opioids," Gottlieb said.

However, as the overdose epidemic has shifted from overprescribing of short-acting prescription opioids to cheaper and more dangerous alternatives, such as illicit fentanyl, Gottlieb said FDA was looking to the internet and social media to identify new problems before they spiral out of control.

Referencing gabapentinoids, Gottlieb said that although "abuse does not appear to be widespread, the agency's preliminary data and scanning of social media shows that abuse of these drugs, either alone or in combination with opioids and other central nervous system (CNS) depressants, may be on the rise.

Gottlieb also said that a national e-prescribing system for controlled substances could help reduce prescription drug abuse and strengthen efforts to reduce the risk of certain prescription drugs.