Ted Stanley, an anesthesiologist and medical entrepreneur who, with a colleague, created the fentanyl lollipop, a palatable means of delivering a synthetic opioid analgesic, mostly to cancer patients, died on July 13 in Salt Lake City. He was 77.

The cause was complications of prostate cancer, according to the University of Utah, where Dr. Stanley conducted research for 50 years and which, along with him and his drug company, reaped millions of dollars in profits from his discovery.

Though prescribed primarily in cancer treatment, the fentanyl-laced lollipop, a sugary, fruit-flavored confection on a plastic stick, has also been used to relieve migraine and cluster headaches, severe back and bone pain, arthritis and other chronic conditions.

But like other products containing fentanyl, a synthetic drug that is a hundred times more powerful than morphine or oxycodone, the lollipop formulation has also proved vulnerable to abuse by opiate addicts.