Review three significant new approaches to developing pharmaceuticals for the treatment of pain, currently in clinical development. The first is a safer oral opioid analgesic with substantially lower abuse potential and overdose protection. The second is an oral non-opioid analgesic with a novel mechanism of action which has already shown efficacy in animals with natural onset osteoarthritis or neuropathic pain. The third is a DNA-based product that may have the first-ever restorative activity in diabetic patients with neuropathic pain. The instructor is personally leading the clinical development of all three products. If approved by the FDA, any one of these could be transformative in the treatment of pain.
