UNITEFA   23945
UNIDAD DE INVESTIGACION Y DESARROLLO EN TECNOLOGIA FARMACEUTICA
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Pharmaceutical composition and pharmacological treatment for enhancement of methadone analgesia and prevention of methadone tolerance
Autor/es:
C. B. ROMANUK; MANZO RH; LAINO CARLOS; M. E. OLIVERA
Lugar:
washington
Reunión:
Feria; TechConnect World 2014- National Innovation Summit & Showcase.; 2014
Institución organizadora:
Tech Connect World
Resumen:
Pain is a significant public health problem. Chronic pain alone affects approximately 100 million U.S. adults, and additional millions experience short-term acute pain. Pain reduces quality of life, affects specific population groups disparately, costs society at least $560-635 billion annually (an amount equal to about $2,000 for everyone living in the United States). Methadone is a synthetic opioid with potent analgesic effects, and it?s useful in managing severe acute or chronic pain. Indications for methadone include moderate to severe cancer pain, nociceptive pain, neuropathic or mixed nociceptive, and failure to respond to morphine or development of toxicity with morphine. Other indications are the need for cost-effective analgesia in patients requiring enormous doses of opioids, requirement for analgesia in patients with renal failure, chronic nonmalignant pain, and pain in patients with a history of drug abuse. The most common side effects of methadone are tolerance develops to the pain-relieving, constipation, sedation, dryness of mouth and skin, nausea and vomiting. Such effects may require discontinuation of methadone treatment and result in inadequate pain control. The successful pain management with opioids is achieved with adequate analgesia and a minimum of side effects. We developed an innovative pharmaceutical composition for the treatment of pain, which can be formulated as soft capsules. The promising pharmacological treatment associated with its use would solve the some of the serious problems of using methadone allowing the use of lower doses to achieve the same pharmacodynamic effect. This innovative technological development includes a pharmaceutical composition which combines omega 3 fatty acids with methadone, and a pharmacological treatment associated to its use. Omega 3 fatty acids are natural products already approved for its use in humans. Methadone is also an approved drug. Then, many expensive and time consuming clinical trials required for proving efficacy and toxicity could be avoided. This development is under patent application in Argentina and the know-how is available for transfer to the pharmaceutical industry. Its main advantages are that pain management can be achieved with sub-therapeutic doses of the opioid allowing a reduction/avoiding side effects, Also a decrease in the tolerance analgesic effect is observed. Our proposal could be useful for pain management in conditions related to both malignant and non-malignant pain. So, a big target population could be favored with this innovation. Our proposal is of interest for pharmaceutical companies who commercialize opioids or omega 3 fatty acids and/or those who manufacture soft capsules. The market for our innovative product can extend to 1.5 billion people worldwide that suffer from chronic pain. The World Health Organization estimates that around one out of five people suffer from moderate to severe chronic pain. Our strategy is to identify pharmaceutical companies who either commercialize opioids or omega 3 fatty acids and/or those who manufacture soft capsules. We are looking for pharmaceutical companies interested in the know-how of the pharmaceutical composition technology which is available for transfer as well as the preclinical evidences of the advantages associated with the pharmacological treatment. Phase III clinical trials are now under development in oncologic patients and this information would also be available for transfer.