(Reuters Health)—Scientists are testing an experimental drug that’s designed to have the painkilling power of morphine without some of the side effects that can lead to overdose deaths.
Initial results in mice with the compound known for now as PZM21 suggest it might be less addictive than morphine and other opiate painkillers and avoid respiratory depression that results in overdose deaths, scientists say.
That’s because the compound activates nerve-cell surface receptors responsible for morphine’s painkilling effects without activating receptors involved in controlling breathing or in releasing dopamine.
Unlike opiates, the new drug might not trigger a surge in dopamine, which is involved in emotions, such as addiction, pleasure and pain, says Brian Shoichet, senior author of a paper on the new drug published Aug. 17 in Nature.
“The dopamine circuit is one of the primary reward circuits in the brain, and its over-activation leads to repeated seeking of the reward stimulus—in this case, morphine (or related opioids),” says Shoichet, a researcher in pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco.
“This ultimately becomes addiction,” Shoichet adds. “Early animal results suggest the new compound does not stimulate the dopaminergic circuit.”
Another potential advantage of the new medicine is that tests so far in mice suggest it may not turn on cellular signals that suppress breathing.
Globally, an estimated 15 million people are addicted to morphine and other opiates, according to the World Health Organization. About 69,000 people die from overdoses of these drugs each year.
Opiates include morphine and the prescription painkillers codeine, oxycodone, oxycontin, hydrocodone and fentanyl, as well as illegal drugs, such as heroin.
Scientists have been searching for years for alternative painkillers that might be less addictive, harder to abuse and safer.
Shoichet and his colleagues took advantage of computer modeling to test more than 3 million known chemicals against the structure of human cell receptors that are activated by morphine. They narrowed down these leads to the most promising one, then chemically tweaked it to further refine its ability to activate only the desired receptor subtypes.
However, even the most promising experimental medicines in mice rarely prove safe and effective in humans and reach the market, notes Pinar Karaca-Mandic, a health policy researcher at the University of Minnesota.
At best, “the odds seem to be 1 in 10,” Karaca-Mandic, who wasn’t involved in the current research, says by email.
Additional tests in animals are being done by San Francisco-based Epiodyne, a biotech company founded by Shoichet and three other authors of the paper in Nature. Epiodyne has funding from Brook Byers of Kleiner Perkins Caufiled and Byers, and by Doug Crawford of Mission Bay Capital, Shoichet says.
