Published: August 28, 2026
Norton Leatherman Spine is testing whether a new nonopioid pain medication can change how patients recover from lumbar fusion surgery — and early enrollment numbers suggest clinicians and patients are eager to find out.
The primary study, “Initiation of Suzetrigine Use in Lumbar Spine Fusion Surgery: Implications and Barriers to Implementation” evaluates suzetrigine (brand name Journavax) in patients undergoing one- to two-level posterior instrumented lumbar spine fusion. It is an investigator-initiated trial led by principal investigator Steven D. Glassman, M.D. Research coordinators Christy Daniels and Morgan Brown are managing day-to-day study operations.
Kentucky and Indiana remain among the states hardest hit by the opioid epidemic, though both are now seeing meaningful improvement. Kentucky overdose deaths decreased for the fourth consecutive year in 2025, with a 22.9% decline compared with the previous year and a 50.8% decrease since the 2021 peak, with fentanyl identified in 45% of 2025 overdose deaths. Indiana has followed a similar trajectory: Opioid overdose deaths in the state fell by roughly 53% since June 2023, and opioids were still involved in 64.5% of all Indiana overdose deaths in the year ending April 2025.
Despite this progress, both states’ death tolls remain historically elevated, and years of opioid exposure have left lasting community and clinical impact. This backdrop is why nonopioid pain management options — multimodal analgesia, regional anesthesia techniques, physical therapy and nonopioid pharmacologic alternatives — are an increasingly important part of responsible pain care: They reduce new opioid exposure, lower diversion and misuse risk, and support patients and providers in regions still recovering from the epidemic’s toll.
Spine surgery has long presented a difficult tradeoff for pain management. Large procedures like lumbar fusion typically require substantial pain control, but patients who start on opioid medication for postsurgical pain relief are at risk of staying on them long after recovery is complete. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, common nonopioid pain relievers in other surgical contexts, carry their own complication for fusion patients: They can interfere with bone healing, making them a poor fit for this population.
That combination — a procedure that generates real pain relief needs, paired with a narrowed set of nonopioid pain medication options — is what makes lumbar fusion a meaningful test case for suzetrigine. The drug represents one of the first Food and Drug Administration-approved nonopioid pain medications, though its use to date has been studied mostly in general surgery and orthopedic contexts rather than spine-specific procedures.
The trial builds on nearly a decade of work at Norton Leatherman Spine to reduce reliance on opioids in spine care, spanning perioperative anesthesia protocols, nerve blocks and other opioid-minimizing strategies.
According to Dr. Glassman, the region’s outsized role in the opioid crisis — southern Indiana and Kentucky among the hardest-hit areas nationally — served as the driving force behind that broader effort.
The trial has two primary aims:
That second aim reflects a real-world access problem. Because suzetrigine is new to market, insurance coverage and copay structures vary widely from payer to payer. Our out-patient experience was examined a study led by Dr. Jeff Gum; “ Suzetrigine in Spine Surgery: The New, FDA-approved, Non-Opioid Pain Medication was Denied in 1 in 5 patients.”
“We are finding patients might be charged $25 at one pharmacy and $800 at another for the same medication,” Dr. Gum said. “The study is tracking how those access barriers play out for patients trying to continue the medication on an outpatient basis after leaving the hospital.”
The primary study examines the benefit of Suzetrigine in decreasing perioperative narcotic requirements. This study is not being run at any other site in the country, and it’s the only site in the region investigating suzetrigine’s use in lumbar fusion patients specifically — no other regional health systems are currently pursuing a comparable study. The volume of lumbar fusion procedures performed at Norton Leatherman Spine gives the trial a large enough patient population to isolate the medication’s effect from other variables.
The trial is currently open and enrolling, with 32 subjects enrolled to date of this article’s publication. Investigators don’t anticipate recruitment challenges going forward.
While the current study is focused on lumbar fusion, the implications extend further: A validated nonopioid alternative for postsurgical pain control has the potential to impact every postoperative patient at Norton Healthcare, not just those undergoing spine surgery.
This project was funded by the Norton Healthcare Foundation from the Fischer & Owen Fund.
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