Researchers at the PAINWeek 2026 Conference shared new data regarding prescribing patterns associated with suzetrigine (Journavx) oral tablets – a first-in-class non-opioid analgesic approved by the FDA in 2025.
Suzetegrine, approved to treat moderate to severe acute pain, at this time does not seem to pose the same level of safety concerns as opioids, indicating that it could see significant utilization in workers’ comp populations as a safer alternative. As this is a relatively recent approval, there is limited real-world data available, and these studies provide insight into how suzetrigine is being prescribed.
The data presented at PAINWeek included five different educational posters for yet-to-be-published studies.
The Twelve Months Following Approval
Two of the posters reviewed suzetrigine prescribing patterns in the 12 months following approval.
The first utilized the Walgreens retail pharmacy database, pulling data from 77,134 patients who had at least one suzetrigine prescription. Initial suzetrigine prescriptions were most frequently written by nurse practitioners or physician assistants (33.5%), orthopedic surgeons (18.5%), and anesthesiologists (6.6%), with prescriptions also commonly ordered by plastic surgeons, podiatrists, dentists, physical medicine/rehabilitation specialists, and less commonly by pain medicine and family medicine specialists.
The median index suzetrigine prescription was for 14 days, and more than three-quarters of initial prescriptions (76.0%) were for 15 days or less, Approximately 12% of patients received one or more prescription refills during follow-up.
The research found that the mean age for patients who received suzetrigine prescriptions was 59.3 years, 40.6% of patients who received a suzetrigine prescription were aged 65+, while 63.4% were female.
The second 12-month analysis used administrative claims data from the Merative™ MarketScan® Commercial and Medicare databases, identifying 6,324 patients with suzetrigine prescription fills between February 1, 2025, and January 28, 2026, who met the study selection criteria. This study found that for those who received suzetrigine prescriptions, mean age was 55.9 years and 62.6% of recipients were female.
The median days’ supply of the initial suzetrigine prescription was 15 days, and 4,993 patients (79%) received an initial prescription of 15 or fewer days’ supply. For 77.3% of patients, suzetrigine was the only prescription analgesic filled on the index date, while 22.7% of patients had concomitant prescription analgesic fills, including opioids, acetaminophen, and NSAIDs.
Impact on Opioid Prescribing
Another research poster evaluated the impact of suzetrigine on opioid prescribing patterns in total knee arthroplasty, utilizing data from Ochsner Health electronic records with administrative claims. A cohort of 106 patients who received suzetrigine post-surgery was compared to a control cohort of 1,487 patients who received standard of care (SOC) post-operative pain medications.
The research found that 62% of patients in the suzetrigine group were discharged without an opioid prescription in outpatient settings, compared to 21.1% for the control group. For inpatient settings, 51.8% of the suzetrigine patients were discharged without an opioid prescription, compared to 26.5% for the control cohort.
Another poster reviewed opioid-sparing effect of suzetrigine in total knee arthroplasty and knee arthroplasty revision. In this study, two orthopedic surgeons added suzetrigine to their perioperative multimodal analgesic standard of care strategy for knee arthroplasty patients in July 2025 with the goal of reducing or eliminating postoperative opioid utilization in this population.
A total of 104 patients were included in the final analysis, with 52 patients in the suzetrigine cohort and 52 patients in the historical control. Postoperative opioid utilization was reduced in the suzetrigine cohort. The proportion of patients that did not require an opioid refill at or prior to the two-week follow-up appointment was higher in the suzetrigine cohort in both the overall population (57.7% vs. 34.6%) and in an opioid-naïve subset (59.6% vs. 34.9%).
The proportion of patients that were opioid-free at six weeks was higher in the suzetrigine cohort for the overall population (88.5% vs. 65.4%) but not statistically significant in the opioid-naïve subset (91.5% vs. 76.7%).
Impact on Postoperative Pain
A fourth poster reviewed suzetrigine administration and prescribing for postoperative pain among older adults, using de-identified OMNY Health data integrating electronic health records from over 30 U.S. health systems between January 31, 2025 and October 31, 2025.
A total of 1,804 patients aged 65+ met the selection criteria, either receiving suzetrigine in a hospital setting or as a discharge prescription. Mean age was 74.4 years, 60.1% were female, and common comorbidities were dyslipidemia, hypertension, and osteoarthritis.
Among discharge prescriptions, 41.2% of patients were prescribed suzetrigine as monotherapy and 58.8% were co‑prescribed other analgesics. Based on claims-based fills of discharge prescriptions, median prescription duration was 15 days, and median total treatment duration was 15 days.
