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Manufacturers of Narcan – the emergency nasal spray used to revive pop singer Demi Lovato this summer after a drug overdose – are currently launching a media campaign to get more people to keep the potential rescue product on hand.
Adapt Pharma, the Irish private company that obtained FDA approval for the commercial use of the nasal spray in 2015, said that the highly publicized event of Lovato's overdose gave them a great "awareness" .
"When we see a story like Demi's, it kind of confirms that what we're doing really works and we need to do a lot more because a lot of people need help," Mike Kelly, president of Adapt & # 39. US operations, told FOX Business.
However, a few months later, Narcan was again in the news but the results were not so promising.
Dennis Shield's assistant, ex-boyfriend of reality star Bethenny Frankel, used the spray during an apparent overdose, but he did not survive.
Kelly said she was frustrated with these stories and that it makes them more difficult to work.
According to the latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 72,000 Americans died of an overdose in 2017. This number is expected to increase further in 2018.
"We think we are only at the beginning of researching information about what we can do, and that is why we are running this campaign," Kelly said. "We need to get enough naloxone (the anti-blocker used in Narcan's spray) to stop people from dying, and secondly, we need to get people on treatment."
The new pilot campaign includes an advertisement launched this week in eight key markets hard hit by the opioid crisis. Kelly said the goal was to target the family and friends of people who are currently battling their addiction.
The CDC reports that witnesses could have intervened, potentially administering naloxone, in 44% of overdose deaths from opioids.
In March, President Trump even introduced Kelly at an event in New Hampshire, touting that he wanted to put the drug in the hands of first responders across the country to reverse the overdoses.
Five months later, Emergent BioSolutions, a biopharmaceutical company in Maryland, announced that it is buying Adapt to strengthen its portfolio, but that it "does not plan to change anything."
Kelly said the company's goal goes beyond simple product sales and profitability, which is one of the reasons why it has maintained a 40% reduction in governments' purchase of Narcan. local and state.
"We announced our free Narcan to schools program several years ago and announced last year that we are expanding it to include more secondary schools and universities. We are trying to launch an educational effort to explain to children what opioids are and what they are not, "he said.
Adapt said more than 80 percent of Narcan's sales came from the United States, which was hardest hit by the opioid crisis.
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