Clinical Trial Shows Drug EXPAREL Reduces Pain, Adverse Opioid Side Effects

In a recent clinical trial, Pacira Pharmaceuticals found its drug EXPAREL reduced cumulative pain scores through 72 hours better than bupivacaine HCI.

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The company published results from nine clinical trials of 900 patients that compared cumulative pain scores, opioid consumption and occurrence of opioid-related adverse events after administrating either EXPAREL or bupivacaine HCI.

EXPAREL also produced longer time to first opioid rescues and decreased opioid requirements and incidences of ORAEs. Thirty-six percent of bupivacaine HCI patients experienced at least one ORAE compared to 20 percent of EXPAREL patients.

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