A Chesterfield company is fighting against drug addiction with the advent of a not-so-new drug called Buprenorphine.

Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals Inc. is the U.S. headquarters of Reckitt Benckiser, a $4 billion British company that makes hundreds of household products such as Lysol, Woolite and French’s mustard. But the Chesterfield division doesn’t deal with any of those goods. Its sole purpose is to oversee the research, marketing and manufacturing of Buprenorphine, a drug that can block an addict’s craving for heroin. "Buprenorphine is a relatively old product that has been on the market for a long time," says Charles O’Keeffe, president of the Chesterfield company. The commercial form known as Buprenex is an analgesic.

Reckitt Benckiser developed the drug some 15 years ago and has been studying the drug’s abilities to combat addiction for almost as long. Buprenorphine isn’t an alternative to methadone clinics commonly used to treat heroin addictions, but rather a complement to methadone, says Robert Balster, director of the Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. In the same way that there are different antibiotics to treat various types of infections, Buprenorphine and methadone treat different types of addictions, Balster explains. "This drug is different. It’s really being used to treat people for whom methadone wasn’t effective."

Balster also points out that rather than going to a clinic, patients can obtain a prescription for the drug from their doctor. Last year, Congress, led by former Republican Congressman Thomas Bliley, passed legislation okaying the use of Buprenorphine in the treatment of addiction. It’s awaiting FDA approval, which O’Keeffe says will come in the not-too-distant future.