In short, yes. I do think that it's one strategy. Again, as we've talked about here, you need to come at this from all the different angles. This doesn't solve the problem because, as has also been said, once you make it either unavailable or less attractive, people may go to something else. But it's the right direction for sure.
There's good evidence from the U.S. For example, the product OxyNEO has been available in the U.S. for several years now; it's still called OxyContin there. There's good evidence through their different monitoring systems that when the formulations switched, there was an overall decline in the attractiveness of the drug and in the abuse rates of the drug. So there is some good evidence to show that it did happen.
I think some people were surprised, though, that the abuse of it didn't go away completely. I think, again, that's where we also need to be thinking that it does reduce one aspect of abuse, which is when people tamper with the drugs and crush them to inject to enhance the high, for example, but a significant proportion of prescription opioid abuse does happen just orally. People take the drug, swallow it, and still get the effects of it.
I think that these tamper-resistant formulations and formulations that put barriers up against the more risky use of crushing them and getting high doses all at once, which increases the risk of overdoses, is good and in the right direction. It's not a whole solution, though.