What’s next for voltage-gated sodium channel blockers

The search continues for selective sodium channel blockers that can serve as non-addictive alternatives to opioids for pain management, without the side effects of non-selective marketed therapies. Getting to success may require companies to test their therapies in more homogeneous populations.

Though the opioid crisis cranked up the urgency of the search for non-opioid analgesics, pain has remained a difficult indication for drug developers due to lack of biomarkers, large placebo responses and rodent models that are poorly predictive of human therapeutic response, Stephen Waxman, professor of neurology, neuroscience and pharmacology at Yale University, told BioCentury...