Vertex’s next challenge for pain pill? Cracking a market dominated by cheap opioids

How do you com­pete against a drug that costs mere cents?

On Tues­day, Ver­tex suc­ceed­ed where many drug­mak­ers have tried and failed — it pro­duced de­fin­i­tive da­ta show­ing that its drug for acute pain is about as ef­fec­tive as opi­oid-based painkillers in cer­tain set­tings, but with­out the risk of ad­dic­tion.

But the drug is cer­tain to be more ex­pen­sive than opi­oids that are cheap, wide­ly avail­able, high­ly ef­fec­tive and en­trenched — de­spite caus­ing thou­sands of US over­dose deaths. Ver­tex’s chal­lenge will be to per­suade in­sur­ers that its ther­a­py, in the long run, will save on health costs and ben­e­fit pa­tients.

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