The U.S. FDA has announced that it will permit marketing of the first product—an electric stimulation device—for use in helping to reduce the symptoms of opioid withdrawal.
“Given the scope of the epidemic of opioid addiction, we need to find innovative new ways to help those currently addicted live lives of sobriety with the assistance of medically assisted treatment,” says FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD. “There are three approved drugs for helping treat opioid addiction. While we continue to pursue better medicines for the treatment of opioid use disorder, we also need to look to devices that can assist in this therapy.”
Gottlieb adds: “The FDA is committed to supporting the development of novel treatments, both drugs and devices, that can be used to address opioid dependence or addiction, as well as new, non-addictive treatments for pain that can serve as alternatives to opioids.”
The NSS-2 Bridge device is a small electrical nerve stimulator placed behind the patient’s ear. It contains a battery-powered chip that emits electrical pulses to stimulate branches of certain cranial nerves. Such stimulations may provide relief from opioid withdrawal symptoms. Patients can use the device for up to five days during the acute physical withdrawal phase. Opioid withdrawal causes acute physical withdrawal symptoms including sweating, gastrointestinal upset, agitation, insomnia, and joint pain.
The FDA reviewed the NSS-2 Bridge device through the de novo premarket review pathway, a regulatory pathway for some low- to moderate-risk devices that are novel and for which there is no legally marketed predicate device to which the device can claim substantial equivalence.
The FDA permitted marketing of the NSS-2 Bridge device to Versailles, Ind.-based Innovative Health Solutions, Inc.
