Henk de Wilde, chief operating officer and R&D Director, iQure Pharma discusses how better understanding of pain is helping researchers to develop novel therapeutics as non-opioid alternatives to manage neuropathic pain.
Key insights:
- Neuropathic pain develops from an injury or disease of the nervous system, most current treatments produce debilitating side effects.
- Treatment of a neuropathic pain patient needs to address multiple mechanisms to deliver a meaningful change in the pain perception of an individual patient.
- iQure is testing novel compounds that help to modulate glutamate, an excitatory neurotransmitter that forms a key step in the pain signaling process.
Chronic pain is one of the most common reasons people seek health care and the leading cause of disability in the world. One of the most severe forms of chronic pain—neuropathic pain—affects over 10 million adults in the United States and nearly 1 in 12 adults worldwide. The population prevalence of chronic neuropathic pain has been estimated to be 7% to 10%.