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OUR WORK

  1. Develop, fund, and perform research on breakthrough medicines for substance use disorders.

  2. Advance nonpartisan policies to reverse the lack of investment and activity in addiction medication development.

  3. Shift the framework of the field to bring focus to breakthrough treatments and interventions that can reduce substance use disorders globally, rather than endless struggles over existing interventions.

ADVANCING MEDICAL RESEARCH

POLICY DEVELOPMENT

CASPR recently published our Innovation Agenda for Addiction with The Federation of American Scientists and the Institute for Progress. The Agenda proposes nonpartisan strategies to drive innovation in addiction medicine, at zero cost to the government. These include expanding the Priority Review Voucher (PRV) system, which is used to incentivize innovation in medicines for rare diseases, to include addiction indications. CASPR has met with and is continuing to meet with dozens of lawmakers, think tanks, and government agencies to advance the priorities from the Agenda.

SHIFTING THE DEBATE

Our publication, Recursive Adaptation, has grown to over 6,000 subscribers, one of the largest, if not the largest, in the field. Readership includes thousands of researchers, policy experts, and addiction service providers. Our co-founder Nicholas Reville appeared on Chris Hayes’ MSNBC podcast, and has been interviewed by STAT, the New York Times, Nature and others.  Our goal is to steer the field towards more strategic investment and research focus, and to push for more ambitious approaches towards population level reductions in addictive disorders.

CASPR is funded by individuals and foundations, including Arnold Ventures and Emergent Ventures.  CASPR receives no funding, directly or indirectly, from pharmaceutical companies.

CASPR is funding two studies with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), on opioid use disorder and alcohol use disorder, to measure the impact of GLP-1s on consumption, overdoses, cravings, and other health indicators. We are in the planning phase for several other studies, including two that focus on recently incarcerated people, where we will measure the impact of GLP-1 treatment on addiction, craving, rates of recidivism, and other social outcomes. GLP-1s have shown immensely promising results in reducing opioid overdoses, alcohol use, and several other substance use disorders, and we are aiming to achieve FDA indications to enable full access to patients.

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