October 21st, 2009

Did you know that there may soon be vaccines for addiction to cigarettes, cocaine, and other drugs?

Reports Reuters:

Hooked on cocaine or cigarettes? The U.S. government wants drug companies to make a vaccine for that.

Convinced of the need for new and better treatments for addiction, the government is focusing its efforts on vaccine development as a new way to treat and possibly prevent addiction to a range of addictive substances.

“It’s a perspective that is very different from what we’ve operated on in the past,” Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse told reporters this week at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago.

Volkow said the agency intends to piggyback on the frenetic investment by drug companies in vaccine development, spurred by the need for new products and the runaway success of products like Merck’s Gardasil vaccine to prevent the virus that causes cervical cancer.

“There is an enormous amount of research and development in vaccines for cancers and a wide variety of disorders,” she said. “We can take advantage of those developments.”

But first Volkow has to tempt drug companies to develop the vaccines by funding costly clinical trials.

Find out more at Reuters.