Discovery and validation of biomarkers to aid the development of safe and effective pain therapeutics: challenges and opportunities

Pain medication plays an important role in the treatment of acute and chronic pain conditions, but some drugs, opioids in particular, have been overprescribed or prescribed without adequate safeguards, leading to an alarming rise in medication-related overdose deaths. The NIH Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) Initiative is a trans-agency effort to provide scientific solutions to stem the opioid crisis. One component of the initiative is to support biomarker discovery and rigorous validation in collaboration with industry leaders to accelerate high-quality clinical research into neurotherapeutics and pain. The use of objective biomarkers and clinical trial end points throughout the drug discovery and…

• NI
  National Institutes of Health
• NI
  National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
• NI
  National Institute on Drug Abuse
• NC
  National Cancer Institute
• NI
  National Institute of Nursing Research
• NI
  National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
• NI
  National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research
• OO
  Office of Research on Women's Health
• NC
  National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health