(Reuters) -Vertex Pharmaceuticals said on Thursday its experimental non-opioid drug in a mid-stage study helped reduce pain tied to a condition caused by a pinched nerve in the spine.
Shares of the company, however, fell nearly 4% premarket as Vertex said a placebo showed a similar reduction in pain scores as the drug, suzetrigine, in the study of patients with lumbosacral radiculopathy.
The condition has no specific approved treatments, and is commonly treated by nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, with surgery being the last resort.
The positive data on the treatment has come after decades of research into non-opioid drugs and multiple trial failures. Vertex theorizes that due to the way the drug works, it will not be as addictive as opioids.
Nearly 108,000 people died from drug overdose in the U.S. in 2022 and about 82,000 of those deaths involved opioids, according to government data.
(Reporting by Sriparna Roy, Bhanvi Satija and Christy Santhosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Devika Syamnath)
