The approval “is an important public health milestone in acute pain management,” Jacqueline Corrigan-Curay, J.D., M.D., acting director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, stated in a declaration. “A new non-opioid analgesic therapeutic class for acute pain offers an opportunity to mitigate certain risks associated with using an opioid for pain and provides patients with another treatment option.”

The business behind the drug, Vertex, stated a 50 mg tablet that works for 12 hours will have a wholesale expense of $15.50, making the everyday expense $31 and the weekly expense $217. The expense is greater than inexpensive, generic opioids. A report from The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review in December approximated that suzetrigine would be “slightly cost-saving” relative to opioids if the rate was set at $420 weekly, offered the drug’s capability to prevent opioid dependency cases.

In a declaration, Reshma Kewalramani, the CEO and President of Vertex, trumpeted the approval as a “historic milestone for the 80 million people in America who are prescribed a medicine for moderate-to-severe acute pain each year … [W]e have the opportunity to change the paradigm of acute pain management and establish a new standard of care.”