Better And Safer Painkiller than Morphine Soon

                Scientists unveiled a synthetic drug on 18 August that appears to neutralize pain as effectively as morphine but without side effects that make opioids so dangerous and addictive. The big data methods used by the researchers also open up a promising avenue in drug innovation. In experiments with mice, the new compound – identified after screening “trillions” of candidates – activated a known molecular pathway in the brain that triggers pain suppression. But unlike morphine and prescription drugs such as oxycodone or oxycontin, it did not switch on a second pathway that can slow or block normal breathing.

                Respiratory suppression caused by opioids results in some 30,000 deaths every year in the United States alone, where opioid use and abuse has taken on epidemic proportions. Nor did the new drug – dubbed PZM21 – produce addiction in the lab mice, which get hooked on morphine and pharmaceutical painkillers as easily as humans. In experiments, the rodents showed no preference between a cubicle in which they had been administered PZM21 or one in which they received a neutral saline solution. PZM21, the researchers summed up, offers “long-lasting analgesia coupled to apparent elimination of respiratory depression.” A third advantage of the new compound is that it does not cause constipation.