Innovations in Therapeutic Care for Opiate Use Disorder and Pain – From Vaccines to Precision Therapeutics

Session Description

Opioids are powerful analgesics. However, their pain-relieving efficacy is overshadowed by their highly addictive potential and the development of hyperalgesia during withdrawal. Indeed, opioid use disorder (OUD) rates have reached epidemic levels with overdose-related deaths quadrupling in the last 20 years to ~50,000 deaths in 2019. Opioid misuse has also led to inadequate pain management that has added substantially to the major public health burden. Thus, there is an urgent need to address this epidemic at multiple levels, including the development of novel approaches to treat OUD as well as safe and effective strategies to manage pain, particularly in pediatric and other vulnerable populations with distinct and highly variable pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) responses to opioids.

This session brings together four highly innovative approaches toward development of therapeutics for OUD and optimization of the therapeutic use of opioids for analgesia and withdrawal management.

Learning Objectives

1. Upon completion, participants will have learned about new recent therapeutic approaches involving vaccines, opioid pharmacology, and novel molecular targets, such as the glucocorticoid system for the treatment of opioid use disorder.

2. Upon completion, participants will be able to appreciate new optimization approaches involving PK-PD models and real-world, data-driven algorithms for precision dosing of opioids for analgesia in pediatrics and neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome.

Session Schedule

4:15 PM - 4:20 PM ET
Opening Remarks
Mathangi Gopalakrishnan, PhD and Vijay A. Ramchandani, PhD

4:20 PM - 4:30 PM ET
Development of Vaccines for the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder
Angela Birnbaum, PhD

4:30 PM - 4:40 PM ET
Novel Neurobiological Targets for the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder
Leandro Vendruscolo, PharmD, PhD

4:40 PM - 4:50 PM ET
Precision Dosing of Opioid Analgesics in Pediatrics
Blessed W. Arul Dhas, MD

4:50 PM - 5:00 PM ET
A Predictive Clinical Decision Support System for Precision Dosing of Morphine to Improve Clinical Outcomes in Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome using Real World Data
Mathangi Gopalakrishnan, PhD

5:00 PM - 5:15 PM ET
Live Q&A and Closing Remarks
All Speakers