Better medicine

Scripps Florida gets grant to improve pain treatment.

Two Scripps Florida scientists have been awarded a $3.68 million, five-year grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to advance their work developing safer pain medications, the Scripps research institute said Wednesday.

Scripps began operating in Jupiter about a decade ago and has been spinning off and growing companies internally that are developing new drugs.

Researchers Laura Bohn and Thomas Bannister have developed new compounds that separate the pain-relieving benefit of opioids from life-threatening side effects that can include decreased breathing rate and lower blood-oxygen levels. The new round of funding will enable their team to further improve the compounds, Scripps said.

“We want to determine if these compounds produce drug preference, which is a sign of abuse potential, and to make new compounds that have built-in abuse deterrence — to control pain without the risk of addiction,” Bohn said.

People who experience severe pain from cancer, car accidents, surgeries, burns and other traumas frequently require powerful pain relievers, sometimes for long periods. Because tolerance develops over time, their physicians often must increase dosage to maintain pain relief, raising the risk of overdose and addiction, according to Scripps.

New pain medications that diminish pain but minimize risk of overdose and other side effects and limit abuse potential are sorely needed, Bohn said.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse is part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.