A More Cost-efficient and Sustainable Way to Manufacture Narcan - WCAI

An average of 130 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose. That’s according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Earlier this year, a different report concluded that Americans are more likely to die from an opioid overdose than from a car accident.

Biochemist Toni Kutchan describes how she and her team found bacteria that could help manufacture the life-saving opioid overdose reversal drug, Narcan, without the harsh chemistry used today.

The overdose reversal drug naloxone – or Narcan – has become an important tool in efforts to reduce overdose deaths. All fifty states allow paramedics to administer Narcan, and many allow other emergency responders and even by-standers to give the drug. Not surprisingly, the number of reported overdose reversals has more than doubled.

But the cost of Narcan can be an obstacle for some communities’ efforts to increase its availability and use. Making Narcan also has some nasty environmental effects – water usage, and toxic chemical waste.

Now, researchers at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis say they have found a more cost-efficient and sustainable way to manufacture naloxone, using bacteria. And that bacteria is found in the waste from opiate processing.

“Narcan is actually an opioid derivative. It's actually made from a chemical in opium,” Toni Kutchen, the Oliver M. Langenberg Distinguished Investigator, VP for Research at the Danforth Center said.

Toni and her team discovered that you can grow huge vats of the bacteria, feed them opium and they’d make Narcan. The current way of creating naloxone is pretty severe.

“It is a type of chemistry that is not particularly good for the chemistry workers in the factory and it's not good for the environment because the waste stream has to be treated very strongly to get rid of those toxic components,” Kutchen said.

Kutchen’s bacteria-based method can decrease the environmental footprint of manufacturing the drug, which could of course help the earth, but also hopefully bring down cost.

There are still many steps to go before this could get put into action in a manufacturing setting, but Kutchen and her team does already have a patent on the enzyme.

They’re currently looking for a partners that will aid them in production.

Web content created by Liz Lerner.

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