Opioid Overdose Reversal

The United States is in the midst of an opioid overdose epidemic. More than 72,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2017, most involving opioids.

Naloxone has proven invaluable as an opioid overdose antidote. However, due to its short half-life (~60 min) naloxone is becoming less effective against newer synthetic opioids such as fentanyl with a longer half-life (10-12 hrs), resulting in a secondary overdose phenomenon known as renarcotization.

To avoid renarcotization, the standard of care is to administer higher and more frequent doses of naloxone. However, this can lead to a secondary complication called precipitated opioid withdrawal (POW), a serious and sometimes life-threatening condition.

Alternatives to naloxone such as nalmefene are even more prone to induce POW.

Because of the risk of renarcotization and POW, there is a clear need for an alternative to traditional naloxone.

Consegna's Approach to Opioid Overdose Reversal

Rather than administer higher doses of naloxone to combat renarcotization or use POW-inducing nalmefene, Consegna's approach is to slowly release naloxone at therapeutic levels over 24 hours.

Our product, CP216, releases an immediate dose of naloxone and then continues to release naloxone for 24 hrs.

Opioid Overdose Reversal Programs

In April 2018 the National Institutes of Health launched the HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-termSM) Initiative, an aggressive, trans-agency effort to speed scientific solutions to stem the national opioid public health crisis.

Funded by the NIH National Institute on Drug Abuse, Consegna is developing CP216, a combination of free naloxone for immediate effect combined with a long-acting (24hr) release of naloxone to better treat overdose from synthetic opioids.