Abstract Chronic pain is pain that persists past the normal time of healing. 1.5 billion people worldwide suffer from chronic pain and this number continues to increase as the elderly population grows, the prevalence of diabetes rises, and cancer survival rates improve. Chronic pain not only severely impacts daily quality of life for many patients, it also places a heavy socioeconomic burden on society. Due to the limited number of efficacious treatment options available, chronic pain is often treated with opioids despite the risk of addiction and side effects. Unfortunately, the prescribing of opioids to treat chronic pain has largely fueled the current opioid epidemic. Therefore, there is an urgent and clear unmet need for non-addictive alternative analgesics for the treatment of chronic pain. The push to develop specific and non-addictive alternative painkillers has brought interest to a particular sodium channel, NaV1.7, shown to be important for pain sensing. Gain-of-function mutations in NaV1.7 are associated with rare disorder characterized by intense pain, such as in patients with primary erythromelalgia and small-fiber neuropathy. Additionally, NaV1.7 expression levels have been shown to increase in various pain conditions. Conversely, loss-of function of NaV1.7 results in the inability to feel pain. Therefore, inhibiting NaV1.7 can be an effective method of reducing pain and treating patients with chronic pain. To accomplish this, we designed epigenetic modulators to repress expression of NaV1.7. Rather than making permanent edits to the genome, these epigenetic modulators will transiently inhibit expression of NaV1.7. By targeting NaV1.7 at the DNA-level, we can achieve specific and long-lasting modulation of NaV1.7, with better pharmacokinetics prospects than RNA- and protein- targeting approaches. This innovative approach has been shown to prevent and reverse acute and chronic pain in five preclinical models of pain. Given the exciting novelty of this approach, in addition to its high level of specificity and efficacy, the goal of this project is to support the business development activities in finding a strong partner to bring this therapy to the millions of patients that need non-addictive, efficacious, and long-lasting treatments for chronic pain.

Project Narrative Due to the lack of efficacious alternative treatment options, chronic pain is often treated with opioids despite the risk of addiction and side effects. With the advent of gene therapy, Navega Therapeutics has developed a gene therapy that epigenetically represses expression of NaV1.7, a sodium channel that is important for sensing pain. The goal of this proposal is to strengthen the executive team to ensure that this program is well partnered and reaches millions of patients to change the current paradigm of severe pain management.