Opioid Prescribing Will Be Supervised Within the Year, Say Officials

Allison Gandey

May 10, 2010 (Baltimore, Maryland) — The US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) controversial opioid risk evaluation and mitigation strategies, known as REMS, are in the final stages of development and could be ready this summer.

The plan will alter the prescribing landscape for opioid therapies and is expected to have important implications for clinicians, the patients who use these drugs, and the companies that make them.

The agency has yet to release details about the new plan, but this weekend Bob Rappaport, MD, from the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research hinted it will include mandatory education.