J&J hands off non-opi­oid painkiller to an up­start in the race for next-gen anal­gesics

Still fac­ing bil­lions in po­ten­tial li­a­bil­i­ty for its al­leged role in the opi­oid epi­dem­ic, J&J an­nounced a glob­al out-li­cens­ing deal for one of its non-opi­oid painkiller can­di­dates and a suite of back­up com­pounds.

The NJ-based gi­ant signed the deal with the Pa­lo Al­to biotech up­start Neu­men­tum. No fig­ures were giv­en.

The drug, JNJ-10450232, is an oral non-opi­oid anal­gesic that re­cent­ly saw mixed re­sults from a Phase IIa clin­i­cal tri­al on den­tal pa­tients. That tri­al test­ed two dos­es of the drug against ac­eta­minophen and a place­bo on 269 pa­tients suf­fer­ing tooth re­moval pain. The high­er dose per­formed com­pa­ra­bly, if slight­ly worse than ac­eta­minophen.

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