Sea snail venom provides potent pain relief

[n2doc]

15 June 2010 by Jessica Hamzelou

Sea snail venom could become the gold standard for the relief of nerve-related pain following the development of a pill that is 100 times as potent as leading treatments.

Current treatments for neuropathic pain include morphine, which is highly addictive, and gabapentin, which both act on nerve receptors. Sea snail venom had been suggested as a good alternative because it consists of a cocktail of peptides, known as conotoxins. These act to immobilise prey by blocking nerve-cell conduction, but in mammals the peptides are an effective analgesic.

The only conotoxin-derived drug approved for human use is ziconotide. Unfortunately, the drug is susceptible to breakdown by enzymes in the saliva and gut, so it is administered by a pump surgically inserted into the abdominal wall, making it an invasive and expensive treatment.

To solve this problem, David Craik and his team at the University of Queensland in Australia have developed the first "orally active" conotoxin drug.

more

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19044-sea-snail-venom-provides-potent-pain-relief.html

[izquierdista]

1. University of Queensland....

And when it gets approved here, Big Pharma will have a sob story :nopity: :nopity: about how they have to recoup all the investment dollars they had to put into "research".

[pscot]

2. They minimize possible side effects

But as always, the devil is in the details.

[Enthusiast]

3. With something so

powerful and effective long term use could bring unforeseen problems. But this could be the drug we need for a non-addictive short term use for after surgery and recovery from injuries.