A recent study led by researchers at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine says it is now possible to predict within three days of whiplash injury, which patients will develop chronic pain, based on cross “talk” between regions of the brain and a person’s anxiety level after the injury. The…

Women with chronic pelvic pain who also carry a genetic variant in the neuregulin 3 gene (NRG3) are more likely to respond to treatment with gabapentin, shows research led by the University of Edinburgh. Up to 26% of women and those assigned female at birth have chronic pelvic pain. Although…

Sex differences in nociceptors, the specialized nerve cells that produce pain, are substantive enough that they could impact treatment response, according to work by the University of Arizona Health Sciences researchers. A patient’s sex is currently not usually a consideration for the choice of pain therapy. But this team’s finding…

As the crushing burden of opioid addiction grows, companies such as Latigo Biotherapeutics and Vertex Pharmaceuticals are working to develop new, safer, and more effective non-opioid painkillers. It’s a huge unmet need and an opportunity. Non-addictive pain drugs represent a growing market that is expected to be worth over $30B…

Computed tomography angiography (CTA) is a more useful test to evaluate patients with stable chest pain (angina), according to new research. Many such patients undergo invasive coronary angiography, but less than 40% of these are found to have obstructive coronary artery disease. Angiography, meanwhile, is more expensive than CT, which…

In work that could lead to a non-addictive alternative to opioids, scientists used chemogenetics to quiet hyperactive neurons that cause chronic pain in both mouse and cultured human neurons. Using a viral vector, they delivered PSAM4-GlyR—a fully humanized protein that consists of a chloride channel that can be activated by varenicline,…

Vertex has announced preclinical data and the results from its Phase II proof-of-concept trials evaluating treatment with the selective, oral NaV1.8 inhibitor VX-548 for acute pain following abdominoplasty and bunionectomy surgeries. VX-548 is a non-opioid pain reliever. These results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). “VX-548 preclinical studies demonstrated high selectivity and…

Research from a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study that collected pain-related data from within the brains of a small cohort of patients, has identified a specific area of the brain and related biomarkers associated with chronic pain. According to the researchers—who were examining chronic pain disorders caused by stroke…

Researchers from the Center for Clinical Pharmacology at Washington University School of Medicine say they have identified a new target for addiction-free pain treatment—alternate binding sites on the kappa opioid receptor. According to the WashU investigators, scientists who are developing drugs that only target the kappa receptor to alleviate pain,…

Researchers in Brazil looking for novel painkillers have discovered instead a potential pain insensitivity mutation that codes for a protein known to mitigate the sensory response to heat and the burning sensation caused by chili peppers. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigations, discovered that an avian variants…

Confo Therapeutics, which specializes in targeting G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), has announced a worldwide licensing agreement with Eli Lilly and Company for Confo’s non-opiod, pain candidate, CFTX-1554 and back-up compounds. “We are pleased that Lilly, an expert in chronic pain with a wealth of experience in bringing novel therapies to…

Researchers from Israel have shown that applying acupuncture during surgery for gynecologic cancers significantly reduces high-intensity postoperative pain, while preoperative acupressure can decrease anxiety. Patients undergoing surgery for gynecologic cancers often experience anxiety both before and after surgery, which has in turn been associated with an increased risk for pain…

A large meta-analysis including 23 trials and 155,000 people indicates that muscle pain is only linked to statin use in less than 10% of those who report these symptoms. Writing in The Lancet, Colin Baigent, Director of the Medical Research Council Population Health Research Unit at the University of Oxford,…

Research from the University of Copenhagen shows a link between use of common non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and hospitalization for heart failure in patients with type 2 diabetes. In a presentation at the 2022 European Society of Cardiology conference in Barcelona, the Danish team revealed that patients who took ibuprofen…

As the world of molecular testing for cancer has evolved, so have the methods for analyzing solid tumors to identify the relevant biomarkers that are hallmarks of the disease. Collectively, these can suggest any number of new targeted therapies that have been developed over the past 15 years. But while…