Vaccines to
treat opioid abuse and prevent fatal overdoses
University of Minnesota
Vaccines offer a potential new strategy to treat opioid abuse and prevent fatal opioid overdoses.
A team of scientists from the University
of Minnesota Medical School and Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation at
Hennepin Healthcare is developing vaccines against heroin and prescription
opioids, such as oxycodone and fentanyl.
These vaccines function by using the immune system to produce molecules (antibodies) that target, bind, and prevent opioids from reaching the brain (the site of drug action).
These vaccines function by using the immune system to produce molecules (antibodies) that target, bind, and prevent opioids from reaching the brain (the site of drug action).
The research team's pre-clinical
studies were published in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental
Therapeutics, Scientific Reports, and PLOS ONE. The
results support future clinical testing of these vaccines in human patients.
Key findings include:
Key findings include:
- heroin and oxycodone vaccines are
highly effective and selective at reducing opioid distribution to brain and the
subsequent behavioral effects of these targeted opioids;
- oxycodone vaccine may be more
effective in humans if oxycodone is administered orally;
- novel immunomodulators may offer a
solution for improving vaccine efficacy.
Pre-clinical studies show that both
heroin and oxycodone vaccines are effective in blocking heroin and oxycodone
distribution to the brain when subjects are challenged with clinically-relevant
opioid doses.
Vaccination prevents addiction-relevant behaviors, including opioid self-administration that models human abuse patterns. These vaccines appear to be safe and may help in preventing opioid-induced respiratory depression, a hallmark of an opioid fatal overdose.
Vaccination prevents addiction-relevant behaviors, including opioid self-administration that models human abuse patterns. These vaccines appear to be safe and may help in preventing opioid-induced respiratory depression, a hallmark of an opioid fatal overdose.
Importantly, vaccination does not
prevent use of currently approved addiction treatment medications such as
methadone, naltrexone, buprenorphine, and naloxone.
The research team is also working on
biologics against other opioid targets, such as fentanyl, and developing more
effective next-generation vaccine formulations.
"Opioid vaccines show promising
pre-clinical efficacy, but the road from the laboratory to the clinic is still
long," said Principal Investigator Marco Pravetoni, Ph.D., Minneapolis
Medical Research Foundation senior investigator and associate professor of
medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School.
This research is supported by grants
from the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health
(Award Numbers DA038876 and DA041730).