Development of Estrogen Receptor B Selective Receptor Agonists to Treat Neuropath

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Neuropathic pain is a serious neurological disorder affecting approximately 1.8 million people in the United States. It is refractory to standard analgesic therapies, with all current neuropathic pain drugs providing relief to approximately 30% of patients. In addition, these drugs all have significant side effects. Consequently there is a clear unmet medical need for new safe and effective drugs to treat this serious and growing disorder. Acadia Pharmaceuticals has discovered highly selective estrogen receptor beta (ER )-agonists that are highly efficacious in animal models of neuropathic pain. Because of their high selectivity for ER , they do not produce the feminizing side effects attributed to estrogen receptor alpha (ERa) activation and display many desirable attributes for a drug candidate: no apparent cardiovascular liability or mutagenicity risks, and little or no potential for drug-drug interactions. No apparent side effects were seen in rats receiving doses 10