The FDA approved the first drug in its class that targets moderate to severe acute pain in adults, without being addictive like opioids.

Non-opioid pain therapies are entering an unprecedented era, marked by the landmark FDA approval of Vertex’s Journavx and a growing number of alternative approaches. Their ultimate uptake, however, remains to be seen.

The US FDA has approved Journavx, a new pain reliever without the risks for addiction or overdose linked to drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin.

The committee supports approving the CFTR modulator for patients 2 years and older with at least one non-class I CFTR gene mutation.

Mirum gained the drug, which it will sell as Ctexli for adults with cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis, in a 2023 deal with Travere Therapeutics.

AlgoTherapeutix blames a “strong placebo effect” for the mid-stage failure for its pain gel ATX01, but the company still believes in the promise of its candidate as Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ first-in-class drug Journavx opens up the non-opioid space.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals VRTX has outperformed the market over the past 15 years by 5.86% on an annualized basis producing an average annual return of 17.7%. Currently, Vertex Pharmaceuticals has a market capitalization of $123.81 billion.

Verve offered few details on the early end of a collaboration the companies inked in 2022, saying only that Vertex cited “changing priorities.”

(NASDAQ:VRTX) has recently achieved a significant milestone with the FDA's approval of JOURNAVX(suzetrigine), a novel non-opioid pain medication. This approval marks the introduction of the first new class of pain treatment in over two decades.