Eli Lilly Abandons Another Experimental Non-Opioid Pain Reliever
/By Crystal Lindell
Eli Lilly's experimental non-opioid pain medication – named LY3857210 – had lackluster results in clinical trials, the latest setback for Big Pharma in developing alternatives to opioid analgesics.
The pharmaceutical company told Fierce Biotech that the oral medication, which is a P2X7 inhibitor, "did not meet our high internal bar for success and is being removed from the pipeline for pain."
P2X7 inhibitors are being studied for their potential to relieve chronic pain and cancer-related pain by inhibiting inflammation and nerve signaling.
But when Lilly tested LY3857210 in Phase 2 trials on patients with osteoarthritis and diabetic neuropathic pain, it performed no better than a placebo in relieving pain.
The company originally purchased licensing for the drug from Asahi Kasei Pharma in 2021 for $20 million. The Japanese pharmaceutical company had already put the drug through Phase 1 testing when Eli Lilly stepped in.
Although it did not prove to be helpful for pain, Lilly said they were still exploring other uses for it.
In August of this year, Lilly also halted development of mazisotine, another non-opioid pain medication it was developing. Mazisotine blocks pain signals in peripheral nerves, but also had disappointing results in Phase 2 trials.
Lilly is still focused on finding non-opioid pain treatments. In May of this year, the company acquired SiteOne Therapeutics in a deal worth as much as $1 billion. At the time, SiteOne said it was “dedicated to the development of safe and effective pain therapeutics without the significant addiction potential and side effects of opioids.”
SiteOne had been working on a new class of non-opioid medications that target 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 theoretically is less likely to lead to addiction or overdoses.
But that approach to pain relief has had mixed results. In August, Vertex Pharmaceuticals halted development of a drug called VX-993 after disappointing results in clinical trials.VX-993 is another non-opioid that blocks pain signals in peripheral nerves, but when given to patients recovering from bunionectomy surgery, it was only slightly more effective than a placebo.
VX-993 is similar to Journavx (suzetrigine), a non-opioid developed by Vertex that also works on peripheral nerves. Journavx was approved by the FDA in January to treat moderate to severe acute pain, despite results in clinical trials that showed it was no more effective than Vicodin.
