Endo Pharmaceuticals has announced it will voluntarily remove its opioid analgesic Opana ER from the U.S. market because of a risk for abuse.
The announcement comes about a month after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requested that the company stop selling the reformulated version of the analgesic.
Opana ER was first approved in 2006, and Endo Pharmaceuticals changed the original formula in 2012 to make the drug harder to abuse by snorting or injecting. However, after reviewing more information about the risks of the new Opana ER formula, the FDA believed the medication's benefits no longer outweighed its risks and requested the company to withdraw Opana ER from the market.
