FDA Teams Up With National Academies to Improve Opioid Prescribing

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced that the agency is hiring the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to help develop guidelines for opioid analgesic prescribing.

The goal will be to better understand the evidence needed to develop opioid analgesic prescribing standards and the research necessary to obtain that evidence, Gottlieb said.

“These evidence-based guidelines can help ensure that opioid analgesic prescribing more closely comports with clinical need,” Gottlieb said. “Our hope is that these evidence-based guidelines can help decrease unnecessary and/or inappropriate exposure to opioids and the rate of new addiction, while importantly ensuring that patients with a true clinical need are getting thoughtful, careful, and tailored approaches to treatment.”