As the United States struggles with an opioid epidemic — largely brought on by an introduction to prescribed painkillers that eventually devolves into an addiction to street grade heroin — researchers from the Wake Forest School of Medicine have developed a non-addictive painkiller.

The chemical compound, called AT-121, has shown promise in early tests conducted on non-human primates, proving to both suppress the addictive components of opioids while producing morphine-like analgesic qualities in the test subjects.

"In our study, we found AT-121 to be safe and non-addictive, as well as an effective pain medication," said Mei-Chuan Ko, Ph.D., professor of physiology and pharmacology at the School of Medicine, part of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.

The team of scientists focused on creating and testing a chemical compound that would be effective on the mu opioid receptor (the primary component in the strongest prescription painkillers), and the nociceptin receptor (the component that hinders the abuse and dependence-related side effects of mu-targeted opioids).

“We developed AT-121 that combines both activities in an appropriate balance in one single molecule, which we think is a better pharmaceutical strategy than to have two drugs to be used in combination,” Ko explained.

Scientists determined that AT-121 was able to offer the same degree of pain relief as other drugs but at a significantly (100-times) lower dose than morphine. AT-121 also mitigated the addictive components of oxycodone, which is a commonly abused prescription drug.

AT-121 was also able to alleviate some of the side effects patients generally experience when using common opioids, such as itching, respiratory depression, tolerance and dependence.

“Our data shows that targeting the nociceptin opioid receptor not only dialed down the addictive and other side-effects, it provided effective pain relief,” Ko said.

“The fact that this data was in nonhuman primates, a closely related species to humans, was also significant because it showed that compounds, such as AT-121, have the translational potential to be a viable opioid alternative or replacement for prescription opioids," Ko added. The research team will continue to examine the compound before applying for FDA approval to start clinical trials on humans.

The findings are published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.