Fentanyl is one of the most powerful opioids known. Is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 more than morphine. A small mistake, a tiny amount, is enough to cause a fatal overdose.
Not only is it more powerful, it is also extremely addictive and much cheaper than heroin. These last two factors have caused, in part, the substance addiction crisis that the United States is experiencing, one of the worst that the North American power has faced.
This country is being the most affected, but it is not the only one. In Spain, overdoses have already been seen due to the consumption of this substance, although Sometimes consumers don’t know they have taken it. This is because it is used to cut and manufacture other recreational drugs and reduce costs.
The other part of the abuse of fentanyl in Spain is due to malpractice or “a bad prescription of the drug” from medicine, points out Beatriz Salazar, coordinator of the neuropsychiatric pharmacy working group of the Spanish Society of Hospital Pharmacy.
Fortunately, there is a drug to reverse the effect of this excessive dose, naloxone. However, Not everyone arrives in time to use it. Now science wants to take another step in the fight against opioid addiction and seeks to develop a vaccine against fentanyl consumption.
The pharmaceutical company ARMR Sciences pursues this challenge and has designed an immunization that will allow neutralize fentanyl in the bloodstream and eliminate it through urine. Thus, it is prevented from reaching the brain, preventing its effects from being experienced and the respiratory failure typical of an overdose from occurring.
It has already proven its effectiveness in mice, for which it has achieved effective for 20 weeks. Now they are beginning the clinical trial in humans and in this case they believe that the protection could last up to a year, according to what its co-founder and executive director Collin Gage has told the media. Wired.
The objective is the same as that of any traditional vaccine: train the immune system so that it can produce antibodies that recognize this substance to fight it.
However, fentanyl It is much smaller than any pathogen for which vaccines are designed, so it does not have an immune response naturally. To achieve this, researchers have used a drug-like molecule with a carrier protein.
That size is precisely what allows you to cross the blood-brain barrier [la red que separa la sangre de los tejidos cerebrales].
With this immunization, the antibodies developed bind to the molecules of this drug to increase their size so that they cannot access the brain. So, the possibility of suffering an overdose is eliminated and that the person experiences the euphoria of its use. Whoever put it on would not feel anything if they consumed it.
Salazar, from the SEFH, believes that, if its development is achieved, it could be something completely new. “It may change the paradigm in the treatment of fentanyl addiction”.
It would be the first time that the immune system has been involved in the treatment of an addiction, says the expert, which may represent a step “totally revolutionary”.
Even so, Salazar is cautious and says that It would not be the end of the problem of opioid addictions. Yes, it would be one more factor to fight against this problematic consumption of fentanyl. Gage himself also acknowledged it to Wired, although his goal is not that, but to avoid all possible deaths.
The race
ARMR It is not the only pharmaceutical company that pursues the objective to immunize against fentanyl overdose, so is the company CounterX Therapeutics. The company, based in Seattle (United States), is also developing a vaccine with monoclonal antibodies, but they want it to have one month of protection.
They do so motivated by the problems that Donald Trump’s government is putting with vaccines. However, Salazar believes that something like this would be almost useless: “It’s short and unreal.” It could be used for emergency withdrawal, but the expert remembers that an addiction is a chronic disease and requires a greater effect.
It is not the first time that attempts have been made to develop a product like this. Science did it in the 70s, then against heroin, that wreaked havoc throughout the world. These projects failed and research in this area was almost abandoned, he says. Wired.
That does not mean that now the fentanyl vaccine will also fail, says Salazar. Since then, “almost 50 years have passed.” Science and research have evolved enormously, especially in the last two decades.
It is true that science has advanced more slowly when it comes to addictions, but the hospital pharmacist believes that this new approach can be an impulse.
Waiting to see how the trial evolves and if these projects come to fruition, Salazar recognizes that it could be a good solution for fentanyl addicts, but “They have to want to stop using it”. It can be very useful in preventing overdose deaths, but not a solution to ending addiction.