FDA inaugurates app competition to fight against opioid overdoses

The Food and Drug Administration OR FDA inaugurates app competition to establish a low-cost, crowd-sourced, scalable mobile phone app to assist connect opioid users who are facing an overdose with nearby carriers of the prescription drug naloxone, a proposed medication that reverse the impacts of opioid overdose.

“With an instant increment in the number of opioid overdose deaths in the United States, there is a vital requirement to harness the power of latest technologies to rapidly and efficaciously link people experiencing an overdose—or a bystander like a friend or family member—with someone who carries and can administer the life-saving medication,” stated FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, MD. That’s why FDA inaugurates app competition to fight against opioid overdoses.

The Naloxone App Competition, which is launch to the public, will be conducted by the FDA, National Institute on Drug Abuse, and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Judges from the FDA, NIDA and SAMHSA will determine submissions and will grant $40,000 to the entrant with the greatest evaluated score.

“Through this competition, we’re tapping public health-focused innovators to assist to bring technological resolutions to a real-world issue that is charging the U.S. thousands of lives each year,” further state Califf.

In accordance to the FDA, many of these deaths could have been ignored if individuals experiencing an overdose had instantly got naloxone to prevent or reverse the impacts of an opioid overdose. The issue, the regulatory agency asserts, is that persons carrying naloxone might not be present when an overdose appears. Although, after FDA inaugurates app competition, officials say an app could help increase the likelihood that opioid consumers, their instant personal networks and 1^st responders are capable to recognize and react to an overdose by administering naloxone.

“Mobile phone applications have been established to educate laypersons on how to identify an overdose and administer naloxone, and to link bystanders with people in requirement of other medical facilities, like CPR. To date, although, no application is present to connect carriers of naloxone with nearby opioid overdose victims,” stated Peter Lurie, MD, the FDA’s associate commissioner for public health strategy and analysis.

Those who need to enter the app competition have until the day of October 7 to register. Registrants will have approach to background resources, involving data on the opioid epidemic, the paased formulations of naloxone, the public health suggestions for the safe and suitable use of naloxone, as well as FDA instructions on mobile medical applications.

Additionally, the FDA will host an onsite code-a-thon October 19 and 20 at its proposed campus and virtually for registered entrants to establish their concepts and previous prototypes. The organization claimed that entire code will be made open-source and publicly approachable.

Participants will be needed to submit a video of a functional prototype along with a brief summary of their concept for the establishment and utilization of the app by the day of November 7.