Alcohol Addiction (Positioning of Current and Emerging Agents for Alcohol Addiction) | Physician & Payer Forum | EU5 | 2015
A Survey of Psychiatrists and Interviews with Payers in the EU5
Despite being a leading preventable cause of morbidity and mortality in Europe, alcohol addiction is tremendously underdiagnosed and undertreated. Self-help/support programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous remain the primary treatment approach for alcoholics, in large part because available drug treatments are not highly effective in maintaining abstinence. Lundbeck’s new dual-acting opioid modulator Selincro (nalmefene)—the first novel drug treatment to reach the alcohol addiction market in decades—could prompt a major shift in the alcohol addiction treatment paradigm by allowing physicians and patients to aim for a reduction in alcohol consumption as a treatment goal rather than complete abstinence. Market access barriers and physician and payer reluctance to accept this new treatment paradigm, however, have proven restrictive to Selincro’s market penetration across the EU5 to date.
