Just some background information on the drug patent (which washington post's link to the patent is paywalled, so here: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.c

Just some background information on the drug patent (which washington post's link to the patent is paywalled, so here: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/85/96/76/8ba72daaca8a42/US20160235739A1.pdf https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/85/96/76/8ba72da...). It's basically buprenorphine (an opioid agonist that is technically non-addictive and indicated for pain control in opioid dependent patients) in a different delivery package that is quite frankly superior to our current versions of buprenorphine. Our current methods of providing buprenorphine are via sublingual (under your tongue, Subutex) or orally (Suboxone, which is actually buprenorphine plus naloxone). It's a wafer that immediately dissolves when taken delivering the drug orally. Now, these methods of administration are pretty good. Subutex will dissolve relatively quickly and you've got good pain management in recovering addicts. However, patients will sometimes take these out of their mouth quickly before the healthcare provider notices, so that they can inject it later (which can definitely provide the euphoria associated with opioids). Suboxone gets around that somewhat, by combining the buprenorphine with naloxone, an opioid antagonist. This works because if the provider wants to give the patient a longer term supply, the user can't abuse it by dissolving the med and injecting it. Why? Because the opioid antagonist that is built in only works when injected, causing severe withdrawal. The issue with this, however, is that opioid addicts are smart. They burn off the naloxone and then inject. So this drug patent offers an alternative: give wafers of buprenorphine at addiction centers that dissolve immediately in front of the healthcare provider. This avoids the hiding issue of subutex, and provides the same route of administration which is the benefit of subutex over suboxone. Now, at the end of the day, does any of this matter? Not really. Subutex is still hard to get covered by insurance, so most providers stick with Suboxone (or generics, as I think that's available now) anyways. Do you think that this new medication will make it into practice? We don't even have phase 1 trial data on the drug, just a patent. If you're really outraged over a drug being patented, though, then the discussion becomes far more complicated. Smarter individuals than myself argue that on HN all the time.