STAT Coverage of Caron Center / CASPR GLP-1 Program
The first real-world pilot program of GLP-1s for addiction treatment.
Check out this great article from Lev Facher, the lead story today in STAT, covering Dr. Steve Klein’s groundbreaking program at Caron Treatment Center, which provides semaglutide to patients with addictions. The program, which is funded by CASPR (that’s us), launched this spring.
In recent months, doctors at Caron Treatment Centers, an elite nonprofit rehab facility, have begun prescribing semaglutide to patients not to address obesity or diabetes but to help treat the addictions that brought them here in the first place.
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To Sarhan, two things already seem clear: Patients are interested in GLP-1s, and the medications are producing results unlike any he’s seen.
“GLP-1 medications are all-around more attractive to patients: They’re new, they’re sexy, they cause weight loss, they jump-start wellness,” he said.
“I’ve never had a person who I’ve started on naltrexone turn around and tell me that their cravings have been obliterated,” he added, referencing a common treatment for alcohol and opioid addiction. “Whereas I have had that happen with people who’ve been started on GLP-1 medications.”
The Caron Program is one of two real-world pilot projects that CASPR is supporting to develop case studies and lay groundwork for new clinical trials. The other program, at OpenDoors in Providence RI, has launched recently as well, providing semaglutide to women with SUD in a post-incarceration transitional housing program (background here).