192 - Opioids Optional: Journavx, the New Acute Pain Management Alternative

HelixTalk - Rosalind Franklin University's College of Pharmacy Podcast

Sean P. Kane, PharmD, BCPS

Health & Fitness, Medicine

4.9 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, we discuss the evidence, safety, and place in therapy of Journavx® (suzetrigine), a newly approved analgesic with a unique non-opioid mechanism of action and additional considerations for its use.

Key Concepts

Suzetrigine is a first in its class NaV1.8 sodium channel blocker approved for short-term (14 days or less) pain relief in adults with moderate-to-severe pain. Unlike opioids, suzetrigine is non-sedating and non-dependence forming.
Suzetrigine is taken as a whole pill without cutting, crushing, or chewing following a particular dosing schedule where the first dose is taken on an empty-stomach.
The most common side effects of suzetrigine include pruritus, muscle spasms, increased CPK, rash, and transient (reversible) eGFR decrease.
Suzetrigine goes through CYP3A metabolism and therefore has significant interactions with CYP3A inducers and inhibitors. Use with strong inhibitors and moderate to strong inducers is not recommended. Dose reduction of suzetrigine is required if used with moderate inhibitors of CYP3A.
Although not formally adopted in a guideline recommendation, suzetrigine's current place in therapy can be moderate-to-severe acute pain relief in adult patients after NSAIDs/APAP options are exhausted, but before or in place of opioid therapy.

References

Bertoch T, D'Aunno D, McCoun J, et al. Suzetrigine, a Nonopioid Na V 1.8 Inhibitor for Treatment of Moderate-to-severe Acute Pain: Two Phase 3 Randomized Clinical Trials. Anesthesiology. 2025;142(6):1085-1099. doi:10.1097/ALN.0000000000005460

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Helix Talk, an educational podcast for healthcare students and providers covering real-life clinical pearls, professional pharmacy topics, and drug therapy discussions.
0:11.0	This podcast is provided by pharmacists and faculty members at Rosal Franklin University College of Pharmacy.
0:17.0	This podcast contains general information for educational purposes only. This is not professional
0:22.4	advice and should not be used in lieu of obtaining advice from a qualified health care provider.
0:27.2	And now on to the show.
0:31.5	Welcome to Helix Talk, episode 192. I'm your co-host, Dr. Kane. And I'm Dr. Patel. And the title of today's episode is
0:39.4	Opioids Optional, Jernivics, the new acute pain management alternative. So normally, Dr. Kane,
0:45.8	I run away from pain management in primary care. But this is exciting because we're talking about
0:51.3	a completely new, unique non-opioid mechanism drug class,
0:57.2	and Jernivix, so Zetrogen, is first of its kind. So we're going to talk about its evidence,
1:03.2	safety, place in therapy, the mechanism, and additional consideration for use.
1:08.5	Who would be a typical patient that might be considered for this type of
1:12.0	medication? So we have a 36-year-old female who has GERD on a long-term PPI, and she's undergoing
1:19.1	bilateral bunionectomy procedure. She talks about her post-op pain management with the surgical
1:24.8	teen. She's never been on an opioid before, but she has a family
1:28.8	history of opioid dependence, and she'd really like to avoid opioids if possible because of that.
1:34.3	She doesn't have any drug allergies. She takes Sprintech as a combination oral contraceptive.
1:40.2	And really, her question is, what are her pain management options in a post-procedure type environment?
1:46.0	Yeah, so we can dive into talking about this new drug, Dr. Kane, Jernivix.
1:52.0	Again, the pronunciation for the brand name is Jernivics and generic suzitrogen.
1:58.0	It belongs to a new pharmacologic class of analgesics called sodium channel
2:03.6	blocker, particularly that 1.8 voltage-gated sodium channel blocker. And we'll get more into that
	...

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