Eli Lilly Bet $1 Billion on Non-Opioids: Will Pain Patients Pay the Price?
/By Crystal Lindell
Eli Lilly is investing heavily in new non-opioid pain treatments with its latest acquisition. The pharmaceutical company announced this week that it was acquiring SiteOne Therapeutics in a deal worth as much as $1 billion.
SiteOne describes itself as “dedicated to the development of safe and effective pain therapeutics without the significant addiction potential and side effects of opioids.”
The company has been working on a new class of non-opioid medication that targets sodium channels in the peripheral nervous system to treat pain and other nerve conditions. Blocking pain signals in peripheral nerves before they reach the brain means the drug is unlikely to lead to addiction or overdoses.
Its drug STC-004 is in Phase 2 of clinical trials. In a February 2025 press release about the medication, SiteOne said it's an oral medication that would likely be taken once a day “for acute and chronic peripheral pain.”
Eli Lilly said it has high hopes that STC-004 “may represent a next-generation, non-opioid treatment for patients suffering from chronic pain.”
It’s noteworthy that Lilly doesn’t even mention acute pain, which suggests the company sees the most potential for STC-004 as a chronic pain treatment.
While any advancement in pain treatment is obviously welcome, it seems prudent to remain skeptical of any company touting a new medication because its a “non-opioid.”
Vertex Pharmaceuticals recently won FDA approval for Journavx (suzetrigine) a non-opioid that also blocks pain signals in the peripheral nervous system. The FDA approved Journavx for acute pain only, despite lackluster results in clinical trials showing that it works no better than a low dose of hydrocodone.
There’s been a gold rush over the last decade by Vertex, Lilly and other pharmaceutical companies hoping to cash in on the opioid-phobia that resulted from the 2016 CDC opioid guidelines. But it remains unclear if it will just result in fool’s gold for pain patients desperate for relief.
Mark Mintun, VP of Neuroscience Research and Development for Lilly, admits that thus far “effective non-opioid treatment remains elusive.”
According to one estimate, the global chronic pain market was worth over $72 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow to $115 billion by 2031.
With so much money on the line for any company that even partially succeeds in developing new pain relievers, resources are going to keep pouring into these non-opioid alternatives, regardless of how effective they actually are.
The sad fact is that there just isn’t as much money in reliable, well-researched generic opioid medications like morphine, which are vastly cheaper than the non-opioids being developed to replace them.
For chronic pain patients, the $1 billion that Eli Lilly used to acquire SiteOne would be more beneficial if it was spent on lobbying the government and medical professionals to expand access to opioid pain relievers.
While my hope is that these types of opioid alternatives will deliver on their promises — my fear is that patients will eventually be forced onto them, even if they don't work nearly as well as opioids.
