The state has awarded nearly $10 million for research and development projects to try to stem opioid addiction, part of the $20 million Gov. John Kasich said he wanted to set aside for high-tech solutions to the epidemic.
“We look at it as a new class of opioid,” Sturmer said.
Greg Sturmer is with Elysium Therapeutics. It is developing a new kind of pill that would limit how much of the painkilling substance would be released into the body.
He says that could prevent overdoses and even stop addiction.
“So there’s not that reward for ‘the more I take, the more high I get,” Sturmer said.
Elysium got nearly $3 million from the state, which Sturmer says can help the company move forward with testing on animals and eventually humans.
Other projects that got state money include programs that use analytics to identify and prevent addiction, other types of pain management devices, and a web-based service that can streamline recovery services.
