Fentanyl History

Fentanyl was first prepared and developed by Dr. Paul Janssen in 1959 under a patent held by his company Janssen Pharmaceutica.

As a potent analgesic that is almost a hundrend times stronger then morphine, the use of fentanyl as a pain reliever and anesthetic was quickly adopted in the medical setting. In the 1960s, the agent was introduced as an intravenous anesthetic under the brand name Sublimaze.

Following the popularity of Sublimaze, analogues of fentanyl were developed and included Sufentanil, Alfentanil, Lofentanil and Remifentanil.

By the mid 1990s the fentanyl patch was developed, which could deliver the drug to a patient transdermally. The Duragesic patch could be worn on the skin and was useful in the management of chronic pain felt by patients with cancer, for example. The patch was made of an inert alcohol gel infused with pre-determined doses of fentanyl. The drug is released by the patch into the body fats, from where it slowly moves into the bloodstream over two or three days, therefore providing long-term pain relief. Duragesic patches underwent several clinical trials, after which they were introduced and popularized in clinical practice.

Next, other delivery devices were developed with examples including the Fentora buccal tablets and the Actiq lollipop. These oral preparations contained fentanyl citrate mixed with fillers. Actiq provided fast-acting relief of breakthrough pain in long-term pain sufferers. Further fentanyl products included an effervescent lozenge and a buccal spray. Despite the various different modes of delivery that were introduced, the transdermal skin patches remain the most widely used form of fentanyl delivery.

More recently, another fentanyl product that has been approved by the US food and Drug Administration (FDA) for breakthrough pain is Onsolis. Here, a soluble film of fentanyl on a disc can be placed in the mouth and absorbed, which avoids the possibility of inhalation or crushing.

Further Reading

Last Updated: Jun 19, 2023

Dr. Ananya Mandal

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Dr. Ananya Mandal

Dr. Ananya Mandal is a doctor by profession, lecturer by vocation and a medical writer by passion. She specialized in Clinical Pharmacology after her bachelor's (MBBS). For her, health communication is not just writing complicated reviews for professionals but making medical knowledge understandable and available to the general public as well.

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Comments

  1. Sherri Macdonald Sherri Macdonald Canada says:

    Congradulations on creating the drug that's now the most highly abused and killing thousands.   Was it worth it.

    • Chuck Winter Chuck Winter Belgium says:

      As of the 1960’s fentanyl has been essential in hospital settings in surgeries: it helped many patients survive, providing comfort. Even now, in the newer formulations, it helps terminal patients and chronic pain patients. It is a strong opioid, never meant to become available on the market, it has always been strongly regulated. However, criminals will be criminals... And China is infamous for illegally copying and producing anything for profit, without the least consideration for patents. The pirate economy and black market generates billions of dollars, untouched by Trump’s tariffs...

      • Russell Barton Russell Barton United States says:

        Into the hands of those that use unregulated opioids that are sold on the street in which our government can’t control, and never will,  and it’s our sister’s and brother’s, fathers and mother’s, innocent people who are dying by the hundreds of thousands every year, and are the real victims of the war on drugs, which our government has inflicted on its own people. It may not be known to most, but there has been a history of political agendas that deliberately let people who are physically dependent on opioids such as heroin, die, as if they were the real enemy of the war on drugs, As an example, and fact, the F.B.I. had tampered with illegal alcohol distribution lines during the alcohol prohibition during the 1920’s, by adding deadly chemical compounds to alcohol so people would get sick, go blind, and even die from drinking it. Just so that society would once and for all, demonize alcohol, and past political big shots think that by imprisoning street dealers and users alike will fix the problem! It’s the governments order for society to demonize something that they don’t like, but at the start, it wasn’t government that wanted narcotics outlawed, and there wasn’t any kind of social movements against narcotics. It was greed that started this prohibition movement, with the passing of the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914; one year after the federal government passed an income tax with the 16th amendment, which by all means was unconstitutional. Illegal or controlled narcotics are a big business for our government, as long as these highly addictive substances remain illegal. The government controls its own monopoly, and gets paid handsomely with corporate taxes paid by the pharmaceutical companies, and the more money these drug companies make, the more money the government pockets. So now you may know why drug prices are so outrageously high. These companies also receives hundreds of millions of dollars by the government for drug research and development. So there shouldn’t be any excuse for these drug companies to impose high drug prices. Did you know there is over 65 synthetic opioids? Drugs like heroin but are hundreds even thousands of times poor potent. Before there was narcotic prohibition, there was never a real social problem with drugs, and crimes that are usually associated with drug addiction today, like theft, robbery, burglary, was non-existent then. It was actually the law that created the crime in this instance. Most of Americans that are found dead from an apparent heroin over-doses, were actually deaths caused from fentanyl that was added to the heroin without the users knowledge.

The opinions expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of News Medical.
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