Sharp rise in opioid abuse may benefit drug delivery contenders

Opioid addiction therapy is one of the most active areas of drug delivery trials and technology. The contenders to develop new methods of tackling the problem should receive a boost from a new study by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, which found that the overuse of pain medications has resulted in a 5% average annual increase in adult hospital stays between 1993 and 2012, culminating in a 153% increase over the course of the study. The issue stems mostly from prescription medications such as morphine, codeine or oxycodone, among others. Over 12 million people used opioids nonmedically in 2010, and about 17,000 deaths were linked to opioid abuse in the same year. Study