Inflammatory pain

Many disease states, burns, abrasions or surgical procedures may cause inflammatory pain. Minor inflammatory pain is currently treated with over-the-counter medications containing emollients or local anesthetics. Emollients are soothing but have little or no analgesic activity; local anesthetics have a relatively short duration of action and may be irritating to the skin. Moderate-to-severe inflammatory pain is frequently treated with NSAIDs or opioid analgesics. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that there are over 44 million annual cases of inflammatory pain.

Neuropathic pain

Neuropathic pain can be produced by injuries or inflammation of nerves and is typically characterized by diffuse, burning pain. Patients may simultaneously experience more than one of these types of pain. Neuropathic pain results from a variety of clinical conditions that effect either peripheral nerves and/or those within the central nervous system. Clinical conditions that frequently result in neuropathic pain include shingles (i.e., post-herpetic neuralgia), acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and diabetes (i.e., diabetic neuropathy). Because of this varied etiology, neuropathic pain is currently treated with one or more of a variety of medications such as antidepressants, anxiolytics, NSAIDs, opioids, and most recently with selective neuronal ion channel modifiers. However, none of these medications is completely effective either alone or in combination.

Visceral pain

Visceral pain can be caused by inflammation or distention of abdominal organs as a result of surgical or diagnostic procedures or from acute or chronic disease. Data from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, indicate that there are over 12 million annual visits to doctors' offices for acute abdominal pain and 5.4 million annual gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy diagnostic procedures. Visceral pain resulting from procedures and conditions increasingly are treated on an outpatient basis. However, the medications currently used to treat moderate to severe pain in these situations include mu opioid narcotic analgesics, which may impair the functional status of patients in the process of treating their pain. As such, we believe that there is significant need for effective pain medications to treat visceral pain that are not limited by the side effects that compromise the use of existing pain medications.