First new non-opioid painkiller approved in the US for decades – here’s how it works

A new non-opioid painkiller, suzetrigine, has just been approved by the US drug regulator, the FDA. It is the first non-opioid painkiller the agency has approved in over two decades.

In the US, a study showed that around 6% of all patients who underwent surgery became persistent opioid users, even if they had never taken opioids before.

Suzetrigine works by blocking the activity of proteins called sodium channels in nerve cells that send pain signals. This stops the pain signal in its tracks, before it reaches your brain and therefore before you experience it.

This is exactly how existing local anaesthetic drugs, such as lidocaine, work. Unfortunately, these drugs block all sodium channels throughout your body, including those that control the activity of your heart, your brain and your breathing. This is why, as their name implies, they can only be applied locally.

This drug only seems to affect the pain channel.

Suzetrigine was found to be equally as effective as opioids at blocking acute pain following moderately painful surgery – either removal of bunions or a tummy-tuck.

So far, however, there is no convincing evidence that suzetrigine is effective in chronic, long-term pain relief.

As someone in which opioids work really weird if at all, yay.