Management Solutions for Opioid Epidemic Are Similar to Management of the COVID-19 Pandemic
News Release
Management Solutions for Opioid Epidemic Are Similar to Management of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Pharmacy Times® interviewed Keri Donaldson, medical director and CEO of Prescient Medicine, about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the opioid epidemic in the United States.
The discussion included how the opioid epidemic in the United States has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, how exacerbating mental health problems during the pandemic may lead to increased challenges, whether national efforts to address the opioid epidemic have changed during the pandemic, whether any current efforts to support those affected by the pandemic are also supporting those affected by the opioid epidemic, and why it is necessary to develop effective public health solutions to help manage the opioid addiction crisis.
Donaldson explained that there are many similarities between the COVID-19 pandemic and opioid epidemic in terms of practical solutions.
“The first thing is making sure that you can treat it. Making sure that you have the hospital beds, making sure you have the ventilators—that same analogy [works] in opioid use disorder when we’re making sure people have access to treatment programs and making sure they have safe places to live,” Donaldson said.
He noted that similarly to the COVID-19 pandemic, the next portion of the solution is prevention.
“As we live through this process, you’re seeing people talk about increased testing, increased surveillance, contact tracing, and then as we roll back even further, god willing, we’re going to get to this point where we’re talking about, ‘Okay what about a vaccine?’ And that’s prevention on a public health scale for COVID-19,” Donaldson said. “That same equivalent in opioid use disorder is understanding who’s most at risk and making sure we standardize the process so that each individual is informed—the patient, the provider, the prescriber, and the pharmacist—prior to prescribing so they can objectively understand if a patient has an increased risk prior to filling that first medication.”
Donaldson also discussed how racial disparities have come into play in the opioid epidemic to exacerbate current disparities even further, how obtaining data can clarify the nature of these racial disparities within the opioid epidemic, what pharmacies can do to support the process of addressing the opioid epidemic during COVID-19, what the value of a pharmacist is in supporting communities affected by the opioid epidemic, and what changes are needed in the future for the country’s response to the opioid epidemic.
Prescient Medicine and Erasmus MC Partner to Study Opioid Addiction Risk
News Release
Prescient Medicine and Erasmus MC Partner to Study Opioid Addiction Risk
CARLSBAD, Calif. and ROTTERDAM, Netherlands, December 10, 2019 – Prescient Medicine Holdings, Inc. and the Department of Clinical Chemistry at Erasmus MC (CC-EMC), Rotterdam today announced a partnership for CC-EMC to study opioid addiction risk in The Netherlands. The partnership will center on Prescient Medicine’s novel genetic testing technology designed to objectively assess an individual’s risk of opioid addiction prior to opioid exposure. The clinical research will be conducted with patients in The Netherlands to confirm that the positive results from research completed in the United States are also found in the Dutch health care system.
According to a 2019 study, the overall number of prescription opioid users in The Netherlands has nearly doubled between 2008 and 2017, and the number of opioid-related hospital admissions has tripled.
“We have seen the devastation of opioid addiction in the United States, and we are worried that we are on a similar path in The Netherlands, given the increased rates of opioid use and addiction,” said Professor Ron HN Van Schaik, Ph.D., Erasmus MC. “Evaluating the potential of Prescient Medicine’s diagnostic technology is an important step in future efforts aimed to help address and minimize opioid addiction in The Netherlands. A test like this would give clinicians a tool to proactively determine the risk of opioid addiction for an individual before they are prescribed a medication. This will enable prescribers to make a choice about which drug would serve their patients’ needs best.”
The genetic panel leverages the power of machine learning to assess a patient’s genetic risk of opioid addiction. The test received Breakthrough Device designation from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States in February 2018. The work done through this collaboration will be the first time the test has been researched outside of the United States.
“A test like this is valuable to anyone prescribing opioids, not just in the United States,” said Keri Donaldson, M.D., medical director and CEO of Prescient Medicine. “We are excited to expand the use of this test to The Netherlands and potentially help play a part in helping combat the opioid crisis that may be developing in The Netherlands and throughout the world.”
About Department of Clinical Chemistry, Erasmus MC
The Erasmus MC University Medical Center (Erasmus MC), an organization with 17,000 employees in 2019, is committed to a healthy population and excellence in healthcare through research and education. It excels in various research fields, studying fundamental and clinical domains as well as public health and prevention. Research at Erasmus MC is at the heart of society, resulting in innovation, quality improvement and more effectiveness in patient care. The overall research aim of Erasmus MC is to translate bench discoveries to bed-side applications. Bibliometric indicators place Erasmus MC in the top 20 of clinical medicine worldwide. In addition to scientific research, patient care and education are core tasks of Erasmus MC. The complete spectrum of medicine is offered, from disease to health and from individual to public healthcare. Erasmus MC is also the largest medical school in the Netherlands, with ~3,100 medical students and has approximately 250 PhD graduations per year. It offers BSc, MSc and PhD programs to train the next generation of medical practitioners and researchers. Its annual research budget amounts to €139.7 million. The impact of Erasmus MC on the Dutch economy is substantial: in 2012, it contributed €3.8 billion gross value added (GVA) to the Dutch economy and it indirectly supports 40,556 jobs.
The Department of Clinical Chemistry contains the International Federation for Clinical Chemistry (IFCC) Expert Center for Pharmacogenetics, led by Prof Ron HN van Schaik, investigating the translation of genetic information in guiding individualized drug therapy.
About SOLVD Health
SOLVD Health (formerly Prescient Medicine) is a privately held company focused on preventing disease by making contextual health information accessible to everyone. Through the development of insights-based health tools, we are enabling individuals and their providers to make better decisions about their health and the health of their families. We accomplish this by translating complex biological signals into actionable patient data that can point the way to better health. To learn more about us, our solutions, and our career opportunities, visit us at www.solvdhealth.com.
Media Contact:
Valerie Melucci; pr@solvdhealth.com
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