A newly found compound, CBD3063, has shown that it can be significantly effective at treating chronic pain in animal studies with barely any side effects. Scientists discovered the compound after screening a whopping 27 million potential drugs extensively.
CBD3063 works by targeting the Cav2.2 calcium channel in a way researchers have never seen before and has shown that it can surpass existing pain-relief medications such as gabapentin in terms of efficacy. The research team published its findings in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” (PNAS) journal.
Chronic pain is an often-debilitating condition that affects 51.6 million (20.9%) of adults in the United States. Around 6.9% (17.1 million) of those suffer from high-impact chronic pain, a form of chronic pain that is so debilitating it substantially restricts patients’ daily activities.
Prescribed pharmaceuticals are one of the most common treatments for chronic pain. While they can be effective, these pharmaceuticals often come with a myriad of challenging side effects. This includes dependence, nausea, constipation, sedation, depression, sexual dysfunction, addiction and even overdose.
The new study by New York University College of Dentistry’s Pain Research Center discovered that the compound CBD3063 could reverse four types of chronic pain effectively in animal studies. A relatively small molecule, this compound binds with the inner region of a calcium channel and regulates it indirectly, allowing it to outperform commonly prescribed medications with minimal of the associated negative side effects.
NYU Dentistry professor of molecular pathobiology and NYU Pain Research Center director Rajesh Khanna notes that calcium channels are critical to pain signaling because they are involved in the release of neurotransmitters such as GABA and glutamate. Gabapentin and pregabalin relieve pain by targeting the Cav2.2 (or N-type) calcium channel, with the former binding to the outside of the calcium channel to affect its activity.
Khanna, who also served as the study’s senior author, says that it is crucial we develop effective pain-management strategies that have minimal side effects. However, since creating new pain-relief therapies has proven to be challenging, Khan’s research team focused on targeting proteins that play a role in pain indirectly.
After screening a library of 27 million compounds and narrowing it down to 77 compounds, the team found that CBD3063 was the most promising candidate.
Khan teamed up with researchers from Rutgers University, Michigan State University and Virginia Commonwealth University to test how different types of chronic pain responded to the molecule. The joint research effort found that CBD3063 could treat trigeminal nerve pain, inflammatory pain and chemotherapy-induced neuropathy without any of the side effects caused by gabapentin.
Scientists are currently working to refine the compound before introducing it to clinical trials as a more effective and side-effect-free chronic pain medication. Further research on novel pain medications is being undertaken by startups that also commercialize generic pain medications, such as SOHM Inc. (OTC: SHMN).
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to SOHM Inc. (OTC: SHMN) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/SHMN
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