US regulators today approved a hand-held injector device that average people could use in an emergency to revive a person suspected of overdosing on prescription painkillers.
Evzio contains a single dose of the drug naloxone, and is the first injector of its kind on the market for untrained medical personnel, the US Food and Drug Administration said.
The United States is in the midst of a prescription opioid epidemic, with overdoses from painkillers causing some 15,000 deaths per year, more than cocaine and heroin combined, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Evzio is the first combination drug-device product designed to deliver a dose of naloxone for administration outside of a health care setting," said Bob Rappaport, director of the Division of Anesthesia, Analgesia, and Addiction Products in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
"Making this product available could save lives by facilitating earlier use of the drug in emergency situations."
The injector "can be carried in a pocket or stored in a medicine cabinet," said the FDA.
If a caregiver or family member comes across someone who is suspected of having overdosed and has lost consciousness or has decreased breathing or heart rate, the injector can deliver a single dose of naloxone into the person's skin or muscle.
Naloxone "rapidly reverses the effects of opioid overdose and is the standard treatment for overdose," said the FDA.
It is typically delivered to a patient via syringe in medical settings such as in an ambulance or the hospital emergency room.
The injector alone is not enough, and caregivers are urged to call 911 and get swift professional medical care in case of a suspected overdose.
More people die in the United States annually from prescription drug overdoses than from car crashes, the CDC said.
