Heron Therapeutics (HRTX) announced that it received a Complete Response Letter from the Food and Drug Administration on June 26 regarding its New Drug Application for HTX-011 for the management of postoperative pain. The CRL stated that the FDA is unable to approve the NDA in its present form based on the need for additional non-clinical information, Heron said in a statement. It added, “Based on the complete review of the NDA, the FDA did not identify any clinical safety or efficacy issues or CMC issues. There are four non-clinical issues in the CRL, none of which relate to any observed toxicity. Three relate to confirming exposure of excipients in preclinical reproductive toxicology studies, and the fourth relates to changing the manufacturing release specification of the allowable level of an impurity based on animal toxicology coverage. We do not believe that any of the issues are significant barriers to ultimate approval, as all of the excipients have extensive histories of use in pharmaceuticals and the specification can be revised. The Company will request a Type A meeting to obtain agreement with the Agency on our responses and resubmit the application as quickly as possible.” Shares of Heron are down 11% to $17.55 in premarket trading while Pacira Biosciences (PCRX), which sells Exparel as a pain treatment, is up 10% to $48.40.