Dr. Daniel Wermeling, a professor of pharmacy at the University of Kentucky, has signed an agreement with Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals Inc. to accelerate production and marketing of intranasal naloxone, a drug designed to treat heroin and opioid overdose.
Nationally, more than 16,500 Americans die each year from prescription opioids, which include prescription painkillers such as hydrocodone, methadone, oxycodone and oxymorphone. The drugs are chemical cousins to heroin, and the spike in their abuse has fueled the recent heroin addiction crisis.
Estimates on the number of U.S. heroin addicts range from 300,000 to 500,000, up about 75 percent from five years ago, according to the National Institute on Drug Addiction.
In the past 10 years, heroin and related opioid pain pills have killed more than 125,000 Americans, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.