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Biotech / Medical : Biotech Lock-Up Expiration Hell Portfolio -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tuck who wrote (713)	9/27/2002 4:11:27 PM
From: Biomaven	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1005

Not a clue, Tuck. I haven't seen anything new. A quick web/Medline search doesn't turn up anything new. Here's some PR from a Pain Conference in June: aecom.yu.edu EINSTEIN RESEARCHERS REPORT ON SAFER NARCOTIC PAINKILLERS THAT PREVENT DEPENDENCY, WITHDRAWAL PROBLEMS June 6, 2002 -- (BRONX, NY) -- Scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have demonstrated that novel formulations of narcotic painkillers may be used in effective, pain-relieving dosages, but without producing dependence or the withdrawal effects that are normally associated with long-term use of narcotic painkillers. These findings, reported on June 6th at The International Conference on Pain & Chemical Dependency in New York, could potentially lead to better and safer forms of narcotic painkillers for people. Narcotic opioids such as morphine and oxycodone (a slow-release form is known as OxyContin) are extraordinarily effective painkillers. Unfortunately, long-term use of such narcotics in the treatment of chronic pain can often lead to tolerance (the need for larger and larger doses) and physical dependency, so that profound withdrawal effects occur when administration of the narcotics stops. Animal studies performed by the Einstein research team show, however, that it may be possible to prevent those negative effects. “Our data, developed first in mice, show for the first time ever that narcotic opioid painkillers don’t necessarily have to be tied to tolerance, dependence, and the withdrawal effects that are normally associated with narcotic drugs, and which may underlie development of addiction in many chronic pain patients,” said Dr. Stanley Crain, professor of neuroscience at Einstein. “The research community and the pharmaceutical industry have searched for safer narcotic painkillers for many decades. Our research could be the answer. Indeed, many physicians and law enforcement officers have repeatedly expressed grave concern over the potential for these drugs to turn patients into addicts,” Dr. Crain added. Dr. Crain and his Einstein colleague Dr. Ke-fei Shen have uncovered a novel biochemical explanation for how morphine works. The traditional view is that morphine activates a single opioid receptor pathway. Over the last few years, Drs. Crain and Shen have shown that, in fact, morphine actually activates two opioid receptor pathways: a well-known inhibitory pathway that results in decreased pain, and a newly identified excitatory pathway that results in increased pain. The researchers believe this excitatory opioid pathway weakens morphine’s analgesic effects and is also responsible for many of morphine’s toxic effects, including tolerance, dependence and withdrawal. The two researchers went on to demonstrate that remarkably low doses of naltrexone, a common opioid antagonist, can block the excitatory opioid pathway. The scientists then demonstrated that blocking the excitatory pathway with low doses of naltrexone gets rid of morphine or oxycodone’s ill-effects, while also enhancing the potency of these drugs. Furthermore, even mice that have become completely tolerant to the analgesic effects of morphine following chronic exposure to this drug show clear-cut restoration of analgesia shortly after receiving co-treatment with ultra-low dose naltrexone. The researchers have therefore demonstrated that their novel technology can both prevent and reverse opioid tolerance. Two conditions must be met in order for this new technology to work: first, the dose of naltrexone needs to be extremely low. Second, the ultra-low-dose naltrexone needs to be administered together with a moderate dose of morphine, oxycodone or another opioid painkiller. “When these two conditions are met, we have good evidence that ultra-low-dose naltrexone alters the mechanisms responsible for causing a weakening of the analgesic effects of morphine, and prevents or reverses opioid tolerance and dependence,” Professor Crain says. “What’s truly exciting is that the results of our mouse studies were recently corroborated in a well-controlled human clinical study. One group of patients received morphine alone, while the other group received morphine plus low-dose naltrexone. The patients who received the optimal ratio of morphine plus low-dose naltrexone experienced much greater pain relief compared to patients who received morphine alone. We think this is a promising start towards the development of safer forms of narcotic opioid painkillers. We are eagerly awaiting the results of more systematic clinical trials that are now in progress, especially on chronic pain patients.” I still have a small, "keep me interested" position. Peter