"Fifty times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine, fentanyl was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1968 as an intravenous pain reliever and anesthetic. Its potential for abuse was recognized even then, and clinicians could get it only in combination with the sedative droperidol in a ratio of 50:1 droperidol to fentanyl."
"Naloxone, known by the brand name Narcan, can rapidly reverse overdoses caused by fentanyl and other opioids. Widespread distribution of the medication contributed to a 24 percent decline in US drug overdose deaths in 2024. It works by attaching to opioid receptors throughout the body and displacing the opioid molecules that are attached there. But a vaccine like the one ARMR Sciences is developing would be given before a person even encounters the drug."
Fentanyl is an extremely potent synthetic opioid; a tiny amount can stop breathing and it is tasteless, odorless, and invisible when mixed into other substances. The drug is cheap to make, highly addictive, and commonly found in street drugs and counterfeit pills to increase potency and reduce costs. Fentanyl drives most US overdose deaths and is the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18–45. ARMR Sciences, cofounded by Collin Gage in 2023, is developing a fentanyl vaccine and launching a first-in-human trial to prevent overdose deaths by immunizing people before exposure. Naloxone reverses overdoses and helped reduce deaths by 24 percent in 2024.
Read at WIRED
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