Embeda

Embeda is a very strong pain medication developed by Alpharma Pharmaceuticals. The active ingredients are morphine sulfate and naltrexone hydrochloride; morphine being the agonist and naltrexone being the antagonist. It is a schedule 2 controlled substance, intended for long-term pain caused by malignancy or where lower tiers of the pain management ladder have already been exhausted, and where medications such as OxyContin would otherwise be indicated.

Embeda is formulated with morphine pellets and has an inner core containing Naltrexone. The purpose of this formulation is to prevent people from crushing the tablet for intranasal administration or from injecting themselves. If it is crushed, the Naltrexone would mix with the morphine and Naltrexone would competitively antagonize the effects of morphine in the body. The inner core containing Naltrexone is specifically formulated so that if ingested orally, the core encapsulating the Naltrexone would not be digested by the GI tract.