Nutra Pharma Corp., a biotechnology company that is developing treatments for adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN), HIV and multiple sclerosis (MS), announced that its wholly-owned drug discovery subsidiary, ReceptoPharm, has published the results of its recent pain study in Toxicon, the official journal of the International Society on Toxinology. The study, which examined ReceptoPharm’s leading drug candidate for the treatment of pain, RPI-78, showed that the pain reducing effects of RPI-78 lasted four-times as long as morphine and without the negative side effects associated with opioid-based pain relievers.
“The results from this study provide a significant step forward in the development of an effective and non-narcotic treatment for moderate to severe pain,” commented Dr. Paul Reid, CEO of ReceptoPharm. “With these results in hand, we believe that RPI-78 could become the first non opioid-based analgesic dedicated to treating Stage II and Stage III pain,” he added.
In the central nervous system, the thalamic parafascicular nucleus (Pf) is considered one of the important processing centers for pain. The ReceptoPharm study showed that RPI-78 had a dose-dependent inhibitory effect on the electrical activity of Pf neurons in male Wistar rats that persisted for at least 2 hours in comparison to the inhibitory effect of morphine, which persisted no longer than 30 minutes. On a molecular basis, RPI-78 was observed to be 4,000 times more potent than morphine. Additionally, the study observed increased serotonin levels in subjects treated with RPI-78, which may explain the improved attitude in those subjects.
“While many opioid-based drugs provide fast and temporary pain relief, the negative side effect profiles and addictive properties of these medicines make them extremely difficult to administer,” explained Rik J. Deitsch, Chairman and CEO of Nutra Pharma. “Because RPI-78 is more effective than morphine and does not produce these negative side effects, we believe that this drug could become the therapy of choice among hospitals and physicians in the near future,” he concluded.
Date: June 8, 2009
Source: Nutra Pharma Corp.
