Optimism vs obstacles: Volkow sees potential for progress on addiction disorders

Nora Volkow, director of NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse, has plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the direction of research and treatment of addiction disorders, despite a series of structural and societal hurdles holding back progress.

On The BioCentury Show, Volkow addressed the fact that the field of drug addiction and substance use disorders faces obstacles that set it apart from other major unmet needs in medicine. Stigma has held back this public health emergency from receiving the kind of attention and investment that other areas receive, and knock-on effects have prevented companies from piling in, or governments from dedicating enough — or the right — resources...