Cara Therapeutics - Fight Against Opioids - 35 Billion Dollar Business

Sorry for the long post, but wanted to explain opioids, their effects and potential solution to opioid epidemic.

The Sackler Family was introduced on Forbes 2015 list of America’s Richest Families for the first time. The family had a reported wealth of over 14 billion USD and this placed them as the 16th wealthiest American family. *1

Sackler family is the owner of Purdue Pharma and Purdue Pharma makes Oxycontin , a very painful and highly addictive opioid based painkiller. Between 1995-2015 in 20 years Oxycontin alone generated a revenue of over 35 billion dollars for the company. I am providing this information not to bash Purdue Pharma or the Sacklers but to give a clear view of the dominance of the opioid drug.

Opioid drugs are drugs that derive from opiums. Morphin, hydrocodone, oxycodone and fentanyl are some example to these opium derived drugs. They are highly addictive and 1/4 of the users in the U.S. end up becoming addicts to these drugs.

There is also an illegal version of this drug family and it is simply Heroin. Heroin becomes the drug choice by the addicts over time because of its cheaper prices. Unfortunately prescription painkillers are the gateway to Heroin. 80% of new heroin users admitted that they have started using heroin after misusing prescription painkillers. *2

In 2015 there were 20,101 painkiller overdose related deaths and 12990 heroin related deaths in the United States. Drug related death The number of overdose deaths increased parallel to the number of painkillers prescribed. Each year there were more prescriptions, resulting in more overdoses.

3*

What makes opioids so dangerous is that they chemically relate and interact with opioid receptors on nerve cells in the brain and nervous system to produce pleasurable effects and relieve pain. The effect is immedeate and very strong thus causing cravings and relapses.

Stamford based biomedical company Cara Therapeutics is working on a revolutinary pain killer that aims for kappa-opioid receptors and acts in the periphery. Their formula is designed to work on outside the central nervous system and is designed to not pass the blood brain barrier. Blood–brain barrier (BBB) is a highly selective semipermeable membrane barrier that separates the circulating blood from the brain extracellular fluid in the central nervous system. Current opioids pass the blood brain barrier and attach to the opioid receptors in the brain, causing high euphoria during the process. This high euphoria is one of the biggest reasons why they are addictive. *4

I am really hoping that Cara Therapeutics becomes successful on their efforts to provide a non-addictive pain-killer.

Here is a short video on how their drug works, it explains it way easier than I did.

Sources :
1* https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexmorrell/2015/07/01/the-oxycontin-clan-the-14-billion-newcomer-to-forbes-2015-list-of-richest-u-s-families/#172210ec75e0
2https://www.asam.org/docs/default-source/advocacy/opioid-addiction-disease-facts-figures.pdf
3 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/05/upshot/opioid-epidemic-drug-overdose-deaths-are-rising-faster-than-ever.html?_r=0
4* http://www.caratherapeutics.com/therapeutic-focus/acute-pain/