NIH Announcing Funding for Opioid Research

On Wednesday, April 4, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced $1.1 billion in funding for research on opioid misuse, addiction and pain in a new initiative called Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL).  This initiative will include research to develop non-opioid pain medicine therapies and addiction treatment options.

As proposed, the funding for HEAL will go towards studies to better understand factors that put patients at risk for opioid addiction; public-private partnerships to develop new non-addictive pain drugs; clinical trials network allowing multiple new and repurposed drugs to be tested simultaneously; best practices for pain management using non-drug and integrated therapies; new medication assisted therapies; and working with state and federal partners to run pilots to test integration of treatment options.

As leaders in pain medicine and patient safety, ASA will continue to work with federal agencies like NIH to develop effective and common-sense pain management strategies.

Read more about the initiative