OKYO Pharma Limited (LON:OKYO; OTCQB:EMMLF) said a non-opioid analgesic it is developing has shown pre-clinical potential to treat acute and chronic ocular pain.
OK-201 was assessed using a mouse neuropathic corneal pain model developed by Dr Pedram Hamrah, an ophthalmologist, cornea specialist, and clinician-scientist at Tufts Medical Center and professor of ophthalmology at Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston.
The topically applied treatment demonstrated a reduced corneal pain response similar to that of gabapentin, a commonly used oral drug for neuropathic pain.
There are no dedicated treatments for corneal pain. Instead, doctors prescribe non-steroidal anti-inflammatories that have short-term benefits, steroids, oral gabapentin and opioids in severe cases. There are side effects of the current standards of care, as well as the risk of addiction to opioids.
“Neuropathic corneal pain is a severe, chronic and debilitating disease,” said Dr Hamrah. “No commercially available treatments are currently available for this condition, so we are excited about these positive results in our pre-clinical model of this disease.”
The big commercial players in the ocular market are AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) and Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS), makers of Restasis and Xiidra respectively.
Both are for a condition called dry eye disease, an area in which OKYO is also active.
Another of its lead assets, OK-101, which targets inflammatory pathways, is being developed to treat the condition along with uveitis and allergic conjunctivitis.
Studies enabling an investigational new drug application are currently underway, with OKYO confirming Wednesday that it expects to make its submission to the US regulator in 2022.