Balanced Pharma Incorporated (BPI) – a large American company focusing on anesthetic drug development – recently purchased a right to develop new non-opioid post-surgical medicine to manage patient pain after dental operations.
Such substances have become especially relevant in recent times due to growing concerns about opioid usage in dentistry. According to some estimates, about 94% of dental patients are prescribed opioids after wisdom tooth extraction, which significantly increases the risk of opioid abuse.
The new injectable drug – Enduracaine Dental – aims to fix this issue globally.
How does it work?
Enduracaine contains a combination of different substances:
- 0.2% of tetracaine
- 0.4% of lidocaine
- 1:250,000 of epinephrine
The drug was presented by its developer – Ventis Pharma – in 2023. However, while its medical effectiveness was impressive, the medicine had various usability challenges, including short shelf-life and the crucial need for refrigeration and reconstruction. These features create a barrier to rapid drug adoption in dental practice.
BPI, in turn, after production rights acquisition, modernized the drug according to clinical standards, providing it with a dental cartridge, increasing the shelf-life term to 2 years, and excluding the requirements for refrigeration and reconstruction.
After its release on the market, the company aims to occupy a $1.4 billion share of the non-opioid pain relief drug industry.
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