Silo Pharma, Inc. (Nasdaq: SILO) set to research and develop a ketamine implant to help treat fibromyalgia and chronic pain.
The company said on Tuesday that the implant will have a specific dosage and time-release mechanism for the treatment. The research efforts will also include analytical testing services and small-scale pre-clinical extrusion trials to assess drug release and stability.
“In addition to our work on SP-26, a new topical ketamine formulation with a time-release feature, we are starting to consider another approach to fibromyalgia treatment using ketamine-infused implants,” Silo CEO Eric Weisblum said.
“The results of this research will supplement our ongoing studies on ketamine therapies for fibromyalgia and other chronic pain conditions.”
Fibromyalgia is a chronic disorder that causes widespread pain in the musculoskeletal system along with memory problems, sleep disturbances and fatigue. It affects approximately four million adults in the United States or around 2 per cent of the adult population.
The market for its treatment is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of over 9 per cent from 2020 to 2027.
Silo Pharma’s Pipeline. Table via Silo Pharma.
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Ketamine is usually used as an anesthetic in human and veterinary medicine and four years ago its uses expanded as it became a powerful fast-acting antidepressant. In addition to these effects, medical researchers have been looking at ketamine for other purposes given its multiple roles in the brain.
According to researchers at Massachusets General Hospital, ketamine has effects on different parts of the brain including the prefrontal cortex which is in charge of planning and other executive functions. It also has effects on the memory formation centre (the hippocampus) as well as the posteromedial cortex in the back side of the brain which is attributed to its dissociative effects.
A review on ketamine use for cancer and chronic pain saw that much of the information available on the use of ketamine for chronic pain relief is within case reports with relatively small sample sizes. Therefore, researchers are still investigating the true efficacy of ketamine in chronic pain conditions.
