The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently launched the 2016 Naloxone App Competition, which is a public competition to create innovative technologies that help fight the opioid overdose epidemic.
The contest encourages inventors to create a mobile app that can provide opioid overdose victims life-saving antidotes.
Leaders from the FDA, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) have invited all public health advocates, computer programmers, innovators, clinical researchers and entrepreneurs to join the contest.
Specifically, participants must develop a mobile phone app that connects people suffering from an opioid overdose with other people who are carrying naloxone, a prescription drug that is the antidote for opioid overdose. Such an app would improve the chances of a person receiving timely administration of naloxone and reversing the overdose.
“With a dramatic increase in the number of opioid overdose deaths in the U.S., there’s a vital need to harness the power of new technologies to quickly and effectively link individuals experiencing an overdose -- or a bystander such as a friend or family member -- with someone who carries and can administer the life-saving medication,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said. “Through this competition, we are tapping public health-focused innovators to help bring technological solutions to a real-world problem that is costing the U.S. thousands of lives each year.”
