New Shot for Alcoholics

[benny05]

From today's Boston Globe:

Cambridge firm readies push on alcoholism drug
By Stephen Heuser, Globe Staff | September 4, 2005

In the high-stakes world of biotechnology, a Cambridge company's experimental injection to treat alcoholics should have all the makings of a big winner.

But first the company, Alkermes, will have to convince doctors across the country that alcoholics should be put on a drug in the first place.

The drug, called Vivitrex, has a distinct advantage over alcoholism pills now on the market: A single shot delivered by a needle slowly releases itself into the bloodstream over a month, meaning alcoholics can't decide to skip a dose during that time.

After tests showed Vivitrex coupled with counseling helps reduce heavy drinking, the Food and Drug Administration sped up its approval process. A decision is expected Sept. 30 and it could be available early next year. Stock analysts predict Alkermes could sell $300 million of Vivitrex annually, making the company profitable for the first time in its 18-year history.

To get there will require a sea change in treatment. Three drugs have already been approved to fight alcohol abuse, but only a fraction of alcoholics ever receive a prescription.

''If you look at primary-care physicians, they're probably not even aware there are medications out there to treat alcoholism, to be honest," said Dr. Raye Litten, leader of the medications team at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Bethesda, Md., part of the National Institutes of Health.

Alkermes has launched a campaign to change the way doctors fight the disease. It has sponsored talks at national doctors' meetings and underwritten education programs that discuss using drugs to treat alcoholism. It recruited the country's top alcohol-abuse doctors to run clinical tests of Vivitrex, and then hired one of those doctors as the company's vice president of medical affairs.

-----------------
I'm wondering at what stage of the disease an alcoholic would receive such a treatment.

And have better non-alcoholic beers kept alcoholics from binging?

[KitchenWitch]

1. I guess this shot is apparently to replace Antabuse

Basically, Antabuse when mixed with alcohol makes a person extremely ill...severe vomiting and the like...It is intended to make a person not want to drink.

I believe it was used a lot during the 1970s and 1980s in rehab facilities...and that its use has fallen out of favor, since unless one is court ordered and in a very controlled environment, the alcoholic has to take the drug for the deterrent effect to work.

I am not sure when they would give such a shot to an alcholic, perhaps in rehab. But again, the alcoholic has to go to the doctor, tell the doctor they want to quit drinking, then the doctor would give the shot. And once the shot wears off, there is nothing guaranteeing that the patient would return for a booster.

[demosincebirth]

5. Antabuse does not make you not want to drink, it only makes you ...

sick if you drink alcohol.

[KitchenWitch]

6. That is essentially what I said

It is a diversion, as in, one who drinks when using it gets extremely ill.

[mirandaod]

2. Even if it works,

I know I'd still need AA to fill the spiritual hole that drove me to drink and overeat in the first place.

[RetroLounge]

3. Exactly.

Replacing booze with a drug?

No thanks.

RL

[ismnotwasm]

4. A woman I sponsered

Right out of a nursing home--they thought she had alcholic dementia. She didn't. She stayed sober 7 years then relapsed. I went see her. She's on those new pills, I forget the name, that is supposed to help with the craving for alcohol. Her doctor recommended them because she has a history of alcoholic seizures so severe she was clinically dead. Once you have seizures of any kind, it create a pathway in the brain, making it easier to have them again. She told him she didn't want to go to detox, and couldn't afford treatment. When I went to see her, she was relatively sober, has switched from vodka to beer. She thinks she's doing well.
I know she's dying from alcoholism. Pills, injections--even if they work for alcoholics--they don't treat the alcoholic mind. Sooner or later, they won't take the pills, they'll skip the injections. And they'll drink.
She won't go to meetings. She won't go to treatment. I know AA isn't for everyone, but she sobered up in the rooms of AA and was a happy vibrant successful woman for several years. She left her support system behind. It's a very long story for the topic. So I won't go into any more. But it's been three weeks since I've seen her, and she's still drinking. Beer. Not as much. Lost in hell. She cries everytime I talk to her. What a miserable way to live.