New drugs will drive Rx pain therapy market

New first-in-class treatments, including drugs from Vertex/GlaxoSmithKline, Rinat Neuroscience, Avigen and Pharmos will expand the market to treat pain in the USA, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and Japan to nearly $50.0 billion in 2020, says research and advisory group Decision Resources.

According to its new Pharmacor report, Novel Approaches to Pain Therapy, the broad range of companies investigating novel pain therapeutics highlights the competition and commercial opportunity in this market in the wake of the withdrawal of two COX-2 inhibitors, Merck & Co's Vioxx (rofecoxib) and Pfizer's Bextra (valdecoxib).

The report finds that drugs with novel mechanisms of action such as Vertex/GSK's VX-409 offer the greatest commercial reward with the lowest risk of failure. Additionally, Rinat Neuroscience's RN-624 and Avigen's AV-411 have the potential to become revolutionary pain treatments by offering improved efficacy over current therapies, although these agents also carry the greatest risk in development owing to the potential for significant side effects. It also says that Pharmos' PRS-211375 will become widely used to treat inflammatory pain.