With the opioid crisis on the rise, there has been an increased prevalence of lifetime substance abuse, creating an urgent need for innovative pain medications without the use of opioids. Unfortunately, clinical development of non-opioid pain medications has been hindered by a massive placebo-response..

In our whitepaper, we discuss the aspects of pain studies that sponsors will need to consider to ensure success of their chronic pain trial model, including:

• The usefulness of specific study designs, from placebo-run in to cross-over and other designs
• Measures to minimize the placebo response
• Designation of rescue medication
• Definition of study endpoints and applied innovation