Release Details

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., April 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ACRX), a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of innovative therapies for use in medically supervised settings, today announced the publication of two studies commissioned by AcelRx analyzing errors involved with intravenous (IV) patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) systems in two peer-reviewed journals, Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety and Expert Opinion on Drug Safety.  These studies analyzed IV-PCA medication errors which were submitted to the MEDMARX database, and the nature, magnitude, and reporting compliance of device-related events for IV-PCA in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) database. The studies conclude that IV-PCA is associated with common and preventable medication errors that jeopardize patient safety. The studies suggest the need for new and improved PCA systems that reduce human error, as patient-controlled systems remain an important component of acute pain care for hospitalized patients.

"The use of existing IV patient-controlled analgesia systems often results in adverse drug- and device-related events which can cause serious complications for patients," commented Dr. Pamela Palmer, AcelRx Chief Medical Officer.  "Many of these complications are preventable and safety could be greatly improved through the use of a less complex, non-invasive PCA system, such as AcelRx's sublingual PCA system Zalviso®."

Details on the publications:
Mohanty M, Lawal O, Skeer M, Lanier R, Erpelding N, Katz N. Medication Errors Involving Intravenous Patient-Controlled Analgesia: Results from the 2005–2015 MEDMARX Database. Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety. 2018 April.

Lawal O, Mohanty M, Elder H, Skeer M, Erpelding N, Lanier R, Katz N. The nature, magnitude, and reporting compliance of device-related events for intravenous patient-controlled analgesia in the FDA Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) database. Expert Opinion on Drug Safety. 2018 February.

About the Journals:
Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety delivers the highest quality peer-reviewed articles, reviews, and scholarly comment on pioneering efforts and innovative studies pertaining to the safe use of drugs in patients. The journal has a strong clinical and pharmacological focus and is aimed at clinicians and researchers in drug safety, providing a forum in print and online for publishing the highest quality articles in this area.

Expert Opinion on Drug Safety is a MEDLINE-indexed, peer-reviewed, international journal publishing review articles on all aspects of drug safety and original papers on the clinical implications of drug treatment safety issues, providing expert opinion on the scope for future development.

About AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of innovative therapies for use in medically supervised settings.  AcelRx's proprietary, non-invasive sublingual formulation technology delivers sufentanil with consistent pharmacokinetic profiles. The company has two product candidates including DSUVIA™ (sufentanil sublingual tablet, 30 mcg), known as DZUVEO outside the United States, with a proposed indication for the treatment of moderate-to-severe acute pain in medically supervised settings, and Zalviso® (sufentanil sublingual tablet system, 15 mcg) being developed as an innovatively designed patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) system for reduction of moderate-to-severe acute pain in hospitalized patients.

For additional information about AcelRx's clinical programs, please visit www.acelrx.com.

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SOURCE AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Brian Korb, Solebury Trout, 646-378-2923, investors@acelrx.com, or Raffi Asadorian, Chief Financial Officer, AcelRx, investors@acelrx.com