FDA Greenlights Vertex's Suzetrigine; A New Hope For Acute Pain Relief

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted its New Drug Application (NDA) for suzetrigine, an investigational oral drug designed to selectively inhibit NaV1.8 pain signals for treating moderate-to-severe acute pain. If approved, suzetrigine would be the first new class of medicine for acute pain management in over two decades. The FDA has given suzetrigine priority review status and set a Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) target action date of January 30, 2025. Additionally, suzetrigine has previously received FDA Fast Track and Breakthrough Therapy designations for the treatment of moderate-to-severe acute pain.

Nia Tatsis, Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Chief Regulatory and Quality Officer at Vertex, commented, “Today’s FDA filing acceptance for suzetrigine marks a critical milestone toward bringing this new, transformative non-opioid analgesic to the millions of patients suffering from moderate-to-severe acute pain each year in the U.S. The FDA’s granting of a priority review further reinforces the high unmet need in treating acute pain, and the filing brings us one step closer to our objective of filling the gap between medicines with good tolerability but limited efficacy and opioid medicines with therapeutic efficacy but known risks, including addictive potential.”

"In my 24 years practicing medicine, I have seen firsthand the desperate need for new non-opioid therapies for treating pain. Too many people today are either undertreated, dealing with negative side effects of currently available therapies or foregoing pain medications altogether for fear of becoming dependent on opioids. Prescribers & pateints deserve new options”,  Scott Weiner, M.D., M.P.H., Vertex Acute Pain Steering Committee Chair, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Attending Emergency Physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said in a statement.