Integrating Suzetrigine Into Acute Pain Care Requires Evidence, Access, and Pharmacist Leadership

Pharmacy Times interviews Tanya J. Uritsky, PharmD, BCPP, FPPCP, FASHP, opioid stewardship coordinator at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, about how health systems can evaluate newer nonopioid analgesics, including suzetrigine, and strengthen multimodal acute pain care through pharmacist-led interventions.

Uritsky explains that pharmacy and therapeutics committees may struggle to interpret evidence for new pain medications because pivotal trials often focus on a limited number of surgical procedures. She notes that those procedures are selected because they reliably produce moderate to severe acute pain, not because a medication should necessarily be restricted to those exact settings. Although committees appropriately seek more evidence, she cautions against focusing so narrowly on procedure-specific data that they overlook the broader severity and characteristics of pain represented in the studies.

She also highlights a practical formulary concern: once a medication is approved for hospital use, prescribing may expand beyond the services or populations initially intended. For that reason, health systems must consider efficacy, tolerability, cost, access, and the sustainability of broader use. As more real-world experience becomes available, committees will be better positioned to define where suzetrigine fits within multimodal pathways.

Uritsky emphasizes that improving acute pain care requires multiple coordinated interventions rather than a single solution. Her health system uses pharmacist consultation, specialist pharmacists embedded in acute pain, addiction, and palliative care teams, standardized pathways, prescribing defaults, dashboard-guided academic detailing, discharge alerts, and patient education. She notes that reducing electronic prescribing defaults lowered opioid prescribing while follow-up data suggested patients still had adequate medication.

Standardized pathways are especially valuable because they combine evidence-based guidance with just-in-time education. Uritsky concludes that pharmacists should be integrated into stewardship initiatives, pathway development, prescribing review, outcomes monitoring, and interdisciplinary decision-making to improve safety, consistency, and patient care across inpatient, perioperative, and postdischarge settings throughout the health system.