There are significant unmet medical needs in pain resulting in
substantial negative impacts on quality of life and
productivity. In 2000, over 86 million Americans were afflicted
with pain causing an economic loss of US$90 billion annually.
Within this group, about 40 million suffer from chronic pain, 28
million are afflicted with migraine headaches, and 1.5 million
suffer neuropathic pain. Although current analgesics on the
market, including NSAIDs, selective COX inhibitors, and narcotic
analgesics are effective in treating acute pain, they are less
effective in chronic pain and mostly ineffective in neuropathic
pain. Incidence of Pain in the US in Millions of Patients The
market for all pain therapies was US $17 billion in 2000, and is
expected to grow to $41 billion by 2010 of which an increasing
proportion will be for chronic pain conditions. 35 million
(12.6%) of North Americas suffer from migraines, resulting in
$17 billion economic costs or 100 million bedridden days, and
there are three distinct migra