New drugs or alternative therapy to blurring the symptoms of fibromyalgia—a patent review

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Fibromyalgia (FM) is a musculoskeletal condition characterized by chronic widespread pain, tenderness and often accompanied by other comorbid conditions such as depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue, among others. Now, we aimed to survey the recent patents describing new drugs or alternative therapy for FM.

Areas covered: This review covers the therapeutic patents published between 2010 and 2017 from specialized search databases (WIPO, DERWENT, INPI, ESPANET and USPTO) that report the discovery of new drugs or pharmacologic alternative for the treatment of FM.

Expert opinion: New therapeutic substances have been proposed in the last seven years. At least as it has been found in our survey, most are still in the pre-clinical phase of the study, and its clinical applicability is unclear. However, other therapeutic approaches were found in patents such as well-established drugs in the market in combination or drug repositioning that combines the ‘new analgesic’ effects with the old side effects. Hence, it is a safe approach for pharmaceutical market, but poorer to patients who need a radical innovation. So, there is the emerging need for further studies on the safety and efficacy of such therapeutic measures and the search for improvement of side effects, as well as the development of new drugs that are unorthodox for different FM symptoms.

KEYWORDS:

• Fibromyalgia
• therapeutic patents
• exploration technology
• drugs

Article highlights

• In the last 7 years, several compounds for the treatment of fibromyalgia were synthesized, and there are now new approaches to the use of drugs that are already marketed;

• Most new compounds have a central mechanism of action;

• Most of the pharmacological effects of these compounds were evaluated in preclinical studies and case reports, making clinical studies necessary for more scientific evidence;

• New drugs are presented and market the drug reallocations indicated for other diseases.

This box summarizes key points contained in the article.

Acknowledgement

The authors were supported by grants from FAPITEC-SE, CAPES, CNPq and FINEP (all from Brazil). We thank the technical support from CINTTEC (Coordenação de Inovação e Transferência de Tecnologia, Federal University of Sergipe). M.A. Oliveira is a scholarship recipient from Graduate Program in Health Sciences/Federal University of Sergipe, Brazil (PPGCS/UFS).

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the FAPITEC-SE, CAPES, CNPq and FINEP.