Acura Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ACUR) rose 19.4% to $4.62 on Monday, soon after the company said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved a pain treatment owned by Acura and Pfizer Inc. Volume for Acura stock topped 4.3 million, towering over a daily average of just below 168,000.

OXECTA is the first immediate-release oxycodone HCl medicine that applies technology designed to discourage common methods of tampering associated with opioid abuse and misuse. This AVERSION^® Technology is a unique composition of commonly used pharmaceutical ingredients. Pfizer is licensing the technology in OXECTA from Acura.

Opioid medications are an important treatment option for patients with moderate to severe pain who are not adequately managed by other pain treatments. However, abuse and misuse of opioids is a serious public health issue that is the focus of a number of recent United States government initiatives.

In the June 20 press release trumpeting the approval from the federal body, interim Acura CEO Robert Jones said, “we are excited to be partnered with Pfizer to bring OXECTA to patients who need opioids to manage their pain. Acura is focused on developing technologies that are intended to potentially deter abuse and misuse.”

Based in Palatine, Ill., Acura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a specialty pharmaceutical company engaged in research, development and commercialization of product candidates intended potentially to deter abuse and misuse utilizing its proprietary AVERSION^® and IMPEDE^® technologies.