Non-opioid pain treatment alternatives gaining public and private traction

By HPN Staff

In the fight to end the nation’s opioid epidemic, researchers and investors in the pain-management field are making headway in developing alternative options for treating pain. Lawmakers and health-related federal agencies are taking note. 

Rapid advances in technology – including Artificial Intelligence – are leading researchers to identify and develop new modalities for treating pain, while biotech companies are developing new, non-addictive pharmaceutical alternatives to generic opioids. 

These advances have spurred two lawmakers, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) and Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-CA), to introduce a bill, the “Alternatives to Prevent Addiction in the Nation (Alternatives to PAIN) Act.” 

The measure would remove barriers to access to non-opioid pain management drugs in the Medicare Part D program. Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) are sponsoring a version of the bill in the upper chamber.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he supports the legislation at a recent Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing on the HHS FY2026 Budget. During the hearing, Kennedy also touted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval earlier this year of the non-opioid analgesic Journavx as an example of efforts to replace opioids.

Why it matters

Chronic pain is a serious and growing medical issue in the U.S., costing the nation between $565 million and $675 million each year. Opioids have long been known to be effective at helping control pain, but are also extremely addictive. Several factors, including over-prescription, exploitation of prescribed medications, and, more recently, the manufacture and trafficking of illicit synthetic opioids, fueled an epidemic of addiction, abuse, and overdoses. 

Between 1999 to 2022, nearly 727,000 people died in the U.S. from opioid overdose, both prescription and illegal. Dual societal priorities — controlling both opioid addiction and chronic pain — have generated several new treatments, but have run into policy hurdles.

According to a press release from Rep. Miller-Meeks, “cost considerations incentivize health insurers — including Medicare Part D sponsors — to employ utilization management practices intended to steer patients towards the lowest cost options, which typically end up being generic opioids.” She said during the HHS budget hearing that “90% of acute pain patients receive opioids to manage their pain, whether they need them or not." 

Miller-Meeks also claimed that while opioid prescriptions decreased among nearly all payer groups between 2011 and 2019, they increased among Medicare patients. The “Alternatives to PAIN Act,” she said, would help streamline access to non-opioid alternatives. 

The bigger picture

Researchers have leveraged several new technologies to develop alternatives for pain management; these include the use of virtual reality, wearable medical technology, neuromodulation, personalized treatments tailored to an individual's genetic profile, and patient-controlled analgesia, which allows a patient to self-administer low, pre-set doses of pain medication. 

Pharmaceutical advances continue as well; in addition to the just-approved Journavx, other non-opioid pain medications are entering various stages of testing, and preliminary studies have been done on the use of psychedelics for the treatment of chronic pain. 

Kennedy said that HHS “is doing everything we can across our department to support access to that solution.” The administration’s policy, he said, would be to provide block grants to the individual states to come up with their own policy solutions. “…Addiction in West Virginia or Ohio is different than addiction in San Francisco,” he told the committee, “and the solutions are different.”