Acadia takes a crack at building a better pain drug

For years, drug companies have tried and failed to develop new and non-addictive medicines for pain, chasing ideas that don’t work at all or prove to be unsafe. Acadia Pharmaceuticals believes it might have found an alternative that blunts pain without risking dependence.

As STAT’s Matthew Herper reports, Acadia bought a small company called CerSci Therapeutics to get its hands on some early-stage medicines meant to interrupt the process of pain signaling. The drugs focus on the peripheral nervous system, staying away from the brain, and are designed to stop neurons from getting sensitized to pain.

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