The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), one of the components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is announcing the “Product Prototypes to Combat Drug Craving” Challenge. The Challenge goal is to solicit working prototypes of multifaceted products that will help with drug craving in people who experience substance use problems or with substance use disorder (SUD). Ideally, these multifaceted product prototypes would combine several different tools or features to address drug craving, providing long-term, on-demand, and personalized comprehensive assistance that can ultimately reduce the likelihood of return to use (also known as recurrence). NIDA expects that the Challenge will inspire many different product prototypes to help people address their drug cravings and prevent recurrence of drug use.
The Challenge will offer up to two awards: up to $50,000 for first place and up to $35,000 for second place entries, as well as up to three honorable mention awards of up to $5,000 each. The Challenge total purse is up to $100,000.
Subject of the Challenge:
Substance use disorder (SUD) is a chronic disease, and like other common chronic diseases (e.g., heart disease and diabetes), SUD can be treated and managed successfully. Among the U.S. population aged 12 years and over, approximately 37 million people have engaged in illicit drug use in the past 30 days, and over 18 million people in the U.S. have a drug use disorder. As with any chronic disease, SUD patients may experience recurrence, and studies indicate that about 40-60% of individuals resume drug use after an attempt to stop and/or after receiving treatment. People with SUD who experience recurrence after a period of abstinence are at high risk for overdose due to lost tolerance; their bodies are no longer used to the same dose of the drug that they took prior to beginning abstinence.
Drug craving raises the risk of return to use. A drug craving is a strong desire or urge for the drug. People experiencing cravings may be intensely preoccupied with the drug or how it makes them feel such that they cannot think of anything else. They may even feel that they cannot live without the substance they are craving. Drug cravings may be triggered by stress, certain moods, being in social situations that remind the individual of drug-taking, being in places where drugs were used previously, seeing images related to drug use, or being around the drug itself.
Drug craving is rooted in processes of reinforcement learning that occur with repeated drug-taking. Increased dopamine signaling in an area of the brain sometimes called the “reward circuit” builds and strengthens associations between the drug and internal and external cues; over time, dopamine is released in these circuits when the individual encounters those cues, and these releases of dopamine motivate the individual to seek and take the drug. Occasionally, this motivation overrides strong intentions to not use the drug, for instance in a person in recovery. The changes in the brain circuits that facilitate drug craving can persist long after detoxification and abstinence from the substance.
Drug cravings are typically subjective and highly individualized in terms of their intensity, frequency, and triggers, so a one-size-fits-all approach will not be appropriate for all people seeking to prevent or reduce these cravings. For example, two patients with an opioid use disorder could be shown the same image of a syringe and while one patient may feel an intense craving, the other patient may not feel much of a craving at all. Drug cravings can also occur for many years after discontinuation of substance use, can vary based on the type of substance used, and can last as long as 20 minutes for an acute craving, so a long-term and on-demand solution to combat craving is needed. Improving outcomes for SUD patients is a top priority of NIDA, and combatting drug cravings is one way to help patients in their recovery.
Medications such as methadone and buprenorphine may provide some relief for cravings in opioid use disorder, but only 11% of people with an opioid addiction in 2020 received any medication-based treatment. Barriers to treatment can include a lack of health insurance, the stigma surrounding SUD, and treatment not being readily available where the patient lives. In addition, there are no medications currently available for patients with other substance use disorders (e.g., stimulant use disorder; cannabis use disorder; sedative, hypnotic, or anxiolytic use disorder).
NIDA is launching the “Product Prototypes to Combat Drug Craving” Challenge to solicit submissions of product prototypes for decreasing drug cravings and preventing a recurrence of drug use. These product prototypes should be:
- Easily accessible and minimally invasive.
- Available just-in-time and on-demand.
- Suitable for use without detoxification (clearing drugs from a patient’s system) as a precursor.
- Substance-agnostic (i.e., could help a patient with any type of substance use). (NOTE: except alcohol, please see “Statutory Authority” section below.)
- Suitable for use by many different patients (e.g., different ages, genders, geographic locations, income levels) at different stages of recovery.
- Multifaceted and modifiable with different options, where the patient/user can tailor their interaction level or use of the particular intervention or combination of interventions based on their individual needs.
In addition to the above criteria, NIDA is asking that the product prototypes be working prototypes. Working prototypes should be functional and work as they are intended to, but they do not have to be the final version of the product. Working prototypes should be a working product that could be independently tested to see if it works as stated by the submitter, and that could be shown to investors and marketing companies.
Solvers should seek feedback from SUD patients/people who use substances, patient advocates for those with SUD/who use substances (family, concerned significant others, caregivers, peer support specialists, etc.), or addiction professionals (doctors, nurses, therapists, social workers, etc.) on their prototypes prior to submission to this Challenge. Solvers should also use evidence-based methods and any additional information they have access to in the development of their prototypes of self-administered, on-demand, personalized products to decrease drug craving and prevent recurrence of drug use. Solutions (prototypes) submitted to this Challenge could include, but are not limited to, the following and combinations thereof:
- Low- or no-tech approaches (e.g., pamphlet, book, online communication board)
- Mobile apps to:
- connect individuals to one another (e.g., social media, hotline, smart social community platforms)
- connect individuals to activities and information (similar to Meetup, Nextdoor, Yelp)
- guide the individual in different methods to reduce drug craving (e.g., guided meditation or mindfulness)
- Extended or augmented reality (similar to Pokémon Go, Instagram and Snapchat filters)
- Digital therapeutics delivered via phone or web, either by a person or via AI-based chatbots, (similar to Talkspace, BetterHelp, Duolingo, customer service chatbots)
- Hybrid approaches (e.g., combination of patient monitoring via mobile health and therapy delivery)
Additional details on what NIDA is looking for in the proposed prototypes are provided in the Judging Criteria and Submission Requirements sections. NIDA is eager to receive prototypes for multifaceted products that will help patients address their drug cravings in an on-demand manner.
Awards:- $100,000
Deadline:- 01-09-2022