Inflammation and Pain
Pain and inflammation are closely interrelated, yet present distinct challenges and opportunities. Pain remains one of the most pressing as well as largest therapeutic areas to address, including a wide spectrum of acute, subacute and chronic pain conditions ranging from acute postoperative pain to chronic osteoarthritis pain. Although well established, the pain field continues to evolve and specialize, as the etiology of pain is recognized as being increasingly complex. A plethora of medications, procedures and devices marketed to address different forms of pain exist, but pain remains an area of significant unmet need. In recent years, with the exception of the introduction of antidepressant drugs such as Cymbalta® (duloxetine) and the antiepileptics Neurontin® (gabapentin) and Lyrica® (pregabalin), drug development in pain has been rather limited. Instead, drug development has focused largely around reformulations and alternate delivery mechanisms to provide improved safety/tolerability/drug abuse prevention among the leading existing classes of opioids and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs.

Inflammation is a natural biologic response to injury or infection that, under normal conditions, resolves during healing or clearing. Unregulated inflammation results in a broad range of conditions, most of which are classified by the tissue or organ where the inflammation occurs. These conditions include: respiratory diseases such as asthma, allergic rhinitis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD; dermatological conditions such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis; gastrointestinal disorders such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis; musculoskeletal disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, or SLE, gout, and spondyloarthropathies such as psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis. Similar to the pain market, there are a wide range of drug treatment options and delivery mechanisms depending on the specific condition. Yet even in acknowledged "crowded" disease areas such as asthma, there still remains significant unmet need in specific populations such as those with severe, refractory and difficult-to-control asthma.