Clinical Progress of Antibody Drugs for Pain Treatment

Pain, which is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential, or similar, tissue damage, greatly affects people's quality of life. Clinical data have revealed that traditional non-steroidal and opioid small-molecule analgesics have varying degrees of adverse effects and even induce addiction, so there is an urgent clinical need to develop novel non-addictive analgesic drugs. As a new direction for analgesic drug development, antibody-based drugs can specifically block pain signaling, reduce nerve sensitization, and have better safety without the problem of addiction to opioids. This review summarizes the latest applications and clinical progress of antibody-based drugs in the field of pain management, mainly including monoclonal antibodies targeting nerve growth factor (NGF), tropomyosin receptor kinase A (TrkA), calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), calcitonin gene-related peptide receptor (CGRPR), pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide 38 (PACAP38) and pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide 1 receptor (PAC1R), which can be used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, chronic low back pain, migraine and other diseases. This review aims to provide some ideas and guidance for further development and application of antibody drugs for pain treatment