Researchers Find Potential Alternative To Addictive Opioid Pain Relievers

A group of scientists say they're one step closer to finding another option to addictive opioid pain medications.

Researchers have been looking for a long time for new ways to safely treat severe pain. A team at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center may have found a new tool to help.

In recent testing on primates, an opioid-like substance called BU08028 was able to significantly reduce pain without the typical side effects.

Moreover, the study's lead author, Mei-Chuan Ko, says the substance appears to carry no potential for abuse.

“This is a breakthrough for opioid medicinal chemistry that we hope in the future will translate into new and safer, non-addictive pain medications,” Ko says.

The addictive nature of opioids has created a nationwide epidemic of people abusing drugs they may have been prescribed for pain. In some cases, users switch to heroin because it's either cheaper or more easily obtained.

Dr. Michael Fitch is an emergency department physician at Wake Forest Baptist. He says treating a patient with the right drugs while avoiding addiction potential can be difficult to balance, but this new compound could someday make it easier.

“If the animal studies they've done looking at these particular compounds pan out to become something that could some day make it to market, I think it's going to be an important step forward towards helping our patients by treating their pain in a way that may be safer,” Fitch says.

Despite the breakthrough, there's still significantly more research and testing to be done before the compound could ever be prescribed to humans.