(New York Times) – How political red tape and a drug company’s thirst for profits limited the reach of a drug that experts believe could have reduced the opioid epidemic’s toll.

In the years that followed, as the epidemic grew, the treatment remained hard to come by, and overdose deaths continued to mount. In introducing this promising medication, lawmakers and federal officials put all of their faith into Reckitt and an eventual spinoff, Indivior. Yet the companies behind Suboxone played a role in keeping the medication out of the hands of people who needed it.

Many who once supported Suboxone’s rollout now wonder how the death toll might have been reduced if treatment medications had been readily available to those who needed them. “There’s no question around it,” says Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse since 2003 and one of the nation’s foremost experts on addiction. “We would have saved many lives.” (Read More)