The Pharmacotherapies for Alcohol and Substance Use Disorders Alliance (PASA) is funded by the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) as part of its Alcohol and Substance Use Research Program (ASURP).
The goal of PASA is to fund research that aims to identify and develop new medications to improve treatment outcomes for alcohol and substance use disorders (ASUD), especially those that occur concurrently with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic test test stress disorder (PTSD). Clinical trials that include military service member and Veteran populations are highly desirable because this comorbidity, along with mild to moderate TBI, is common in these populations. Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is the most common ASUD in the military, but opiate use disorder (OUD) also has developed significant clinical importance due to prolonged pain treatments with opiates. FDA-approved pharmacotherapies are available for ASUD, OUD, and PTSD. While TBI is of interest, it has no FDA-approved specific pharmacotherapies, and none of these combined disorders have FDA-approved pharmacotherapies.