Ed Bilsky’s biotech company gets patent for non-addictive, low side effect drug for pain relief

Biousian Biosystems Inc., a biotechnology company founded by Ed Bilsky, Ph.D., vice president for Research and Scholarship and director of the Center for Excellence in the Neurosciences, announced that it has received a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a series of highly selective and potent delta opioid receptor agonist drugs for the treatment of acute and chronic pain.

One of the molecules covered by the patent is BBI-110078, the company’s lead drug, which is positioned as a best-in-class pain reliever.

BBI-11008 is an orally available drug that relieves pain with the effectiveness of opioids but exhibits markedly reduced toxicities and side effects (such as respiratory distress and gastrointestinal immobility), and it shows no evidence of causing addiction.

Bilsky stated:  “Delta opioid receptors were first described in the 1970s, but multiple efforts to develop a highly selective agonist with drug-like properties have failed.”  He describes the lead molecule as having “therapeutic utility across a broad range of pain indications, including neuropathic pain, inflammatory pain, cancer pain and migraine.”

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