By Rick Winterson
Vertex Pharmaceuticals is a worldwide biotechnology corporation. It was founded 35 years ago in Cambridge. It has now established its global headquarters on Fan Pier in South Boston’s Seaport District.
In addition, Vertex has international headquarters in London along with commercial branches and research sites in continental Europe, Australia, Latin America, the Middle East, and other points in North America. More specifically, in its location at 50 Northern Avenue, Vertex is an integral part of South Boston’s Innovation District. And Vertex has been truly innovative.
In January of this year, Vertex announced that the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) had just approved a recently developed Vertex product – it’s a new type of painkiller Vertex has named “Journavx.”
According to trade/technical journals and news releases, Journavx can treat various kinds of pain in adults, including moderate to severe pain and acute short-term pain. During its extensive test phases, Journavx also performed well after several types of surgeries, including cosmetic face surgery. It seems to act very quickly in relieving surgical pain. And it apparently gives more relief than over-the-counter medicines such as aspirin, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen.
South Boston Online apologize for getting technical here, but Journavx’s chemical name is “suzetrigine,” which is a so-called “non-opioid painkiller.” And that’s important! Simply stated, opioid painkillers (such as Vicodin and the highly publicized Fentanyl opioid) work by intercepting and blocking pain signals inside a person’s brain. They do this quite well, but unfortunately, that often leads to opioid addiction. Journavx works differently. It blocks key pain channels at the nerves themselves, before the pain signals ever reach a person’s brain.
South Boston Online will apologize again for getting so technical, but you should know why the Journavx technology will not cause addiction. As we stated above, that’s obviously very important. According to many technical journals, doctors are excited about having a new non-opioid, non-addictive pain medicine to prescribe. There hasn’t been one of these developed since the 21st Century began, 25 years ago.
There’s still a lot to be learned about non-opioid pain relievers like Journavx, such as how well it works out in the field on many different people. It’s also expensive – a standard dose of two Journavx tablets a day will cost about $30, but in part, that could be covered by insurance.
In any case, Vertex deserves congratulations for creating, developing, and marketing a new and useful painkiller – one that won’t cause people suffering from pain to become addicted.
