Deliverable: Transcripts Only

May 2006

Objectives:

• Explore agents and approaches aimed at addressing unmet needs in the treatment of neuropathic pain
• Discuss drugs in development, the rationales behind their putative mechanisms of action, and certain data and information about to be presented at next week’s annual meeting of the American Pain Society (APS; May 3-May 6; San Antonio, TX)

Products Highlighted:

• Tapentadol (Gruenenthal GmbH)
• Bicifadine (DOV Pharmaceutical)
• Lacosamide (Schwarz Biosciences)
• XP13512 (XenoPort)
• Sativex (GW Pharmaceuticals)
• AV411 (Avigen)
• TRPV1 antagonists

Topics:

• Unmet needs facing physicians and drug developers in chronic/neuropathic pain
• Review of abstracts to be presented at APS and reaction to the data
• Assessment of anticonvulsants, cannabinoids, mu agonists/NERIs, glial inhibitors, TRPV1 antagonists and rating the level of excitement for these new agents/mechanisms

Quotes:

• “The data would appear to suggest that …”
• “I would recommend that this drug not be pursued any further.”
• “This may be the rationale for use of XX in comparator studies, but from a clinical perspective, my experience has been that XX is a generally well tolerated and very useful agent…”
• “I am most excited about XX because…”

Participants:

• Charles Argoff, MD: Assistant Professor of Neurology, New York University School of Medicine; Co-Director, Cohn Pain Management Center at North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, NY
• R. Norman Harden, MD: Medical Director, Center for Pain Studies, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
• David Herrmann, MD, MBBCh: Associate Professor, Department of Neurology, University of Rochester
• Michael Ossipov, PhD: Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, University of Arizona
• Michael Salter, MD, PhD: Director, University of Toronto Centre for the Study of Pain
• J. Robinson Singleton, MD: Associate Professor of Neurology, University of Utah
• Mark Wallace, MD: Program Director, UCSD Center for Pain and Palliative Medicine; Associate Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology, UCSD School of Medicine
• Clifford Woolf, MD: Professor, Richard Kitz Chair of Anesthesia, Harvard Medical School