Estimating Attractiveness for Abuse of a Not-Yet-Marketed "Abuse-Deterrent" Prescription Opioid Formulation

ABSTRACT Objective. The present study builds on research to model abusers' perceptions of particular analgesics' attractiveness for abuse and extends these methods to derive an estimate of attractiveness for abuse of a not‐yet‐marketed abuse‐deterrent formulation (ADF) of a prescription opioid (Remoxy®, Pain Therapeutics, Inc., San Mateo, CA, and King Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Bristol, TN). In a previous study, the Opioid Attractiveness Technology Scaling (OATS) method identified, from a drug abuser's point of view, the particular features of a prescription opioid relevant to its attractiveness for recreational use. A second online sample rated the extent to which these features applied to particular products they had actually used/abused. These data were used to model the abusers' overall preference for prescription opioids they had used/abused. Design. In the present study, this method was applied to a not‐yet‐marketed ADF using substance abuse counselors as proxies for prescription opioid abusers. Thirty‐eight counselors were given materials describing the new ADF along with four known products. Results. Thirty‐two counselors demonstrated sufficient agreement with abusers' ratings of the overall attractiveness of these drugs. The overall model yielded a significant pseudo R2 of 0.15 (P