From last week’s issue of C&EN:

In 1898 Chemists at Bayer believed they had a wonder drug on their hands. Their newest pain reliever and cough remedy, a diacetylated form of morphine, was more potent than its parent opioid with one-tenth of its toxic effects. And unlike morphine, this compound wasn’t habit-forming, or so proclaimed one report in the Boston Medical & Surgical Journal. The wonder drug’s reputation so impressed the members of the St James Society that the U.S. philanthropic began a campaign to mail free samples of the stuff to morphine addicts who were trying to kick the habit. That wonder drug was heroine.

As much as we’d like to think things have changed over the years:

Introduced in 1995, OxyContin is a controlled-release formulation of oxycodone that provides 12 hours of pain relief. Pain management experts hailed OxyContin as a breakthrough, and by 2001 it was the most frequently prescribed brand-name narcotic for treating moderate-to-severe pain in the U.S., bringing in more than $1 billion in annual sales. At the same time, reports were surfacing about the drug’s potential for abuse. Crushing, chewing, or dissolving the tablets destroys the controlled-release feature, delivering the entire dose of oxycodone at once and a heroine-like high along with it. Last year, Purdue and three of its executives pleaded guilty to misleading regulators, doctors, and patients about OxyContin’s addictive properties and potential for abuse. They agreed to pay $634.5 million in fines.

With many big pharma brand-name drugs ending their period of protection under patent laws, will the pressure to create new drugs and maintain profitability result in more of the above?