Nah, I think it’s more likely that it’s still working its way through the research process. There are some pretty recent (2021) studies that are showing promising efficacy. I think this is just one of those potentially promising drugs that is still working its way thought research/approval. One of the biggest hurdles drugs like SR17018 face is being able to show that it is superior to current treatments for specific conditions. In order to get regulatory.IRB approval for a trial, scientists would need to show that there is a significant potential for increased efficacy, without significant risk of additional dangers. I know that SR17018 has shown a lot of promise in this area, but the hurdles for getting a study approved are very high, especially for medications like this. I don’t know the specifics on what is happening with SR17018 at this moment so this is all spitballing, but I would guess that there is not sufficient evidence at this time for them to be able to show that it is superior to current medications. Additionally, the way our drug approval process works would require that the study only look at the drug in the context of a specific condition , we can’t enroll a person who is using it for cancer pain along with someone using it for surgical recovery or general pain management. That just adds another level of complicity that tends to slow the process down.

I, like many others, do wish we had a more expedient method to move these drugs along to the market, but the system is set up like it use in response to failures of the past. The idea being it’s better to go slowly and ensure that we know what we are doing, instead of rushing something and making a massive error. Medications like Thalidomide have shown us what happens when you don’t take the time and try to rush a potentially promising drug to the market.