Preclinical Screening Platform for Pain (PSPP)
About the Program
The Federal Pain Research Strategy identified an urgent need to reduce reliance on prescription opioid medications through the development of new, non-opioid pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic treatments for pain. This critical need aligns with the Helping to End Addiction Long-termSM Initiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative, goal to accelerate the discovery and preclinical development of non-addictive pain treatments for the more than 25 million Americans who live with daily chronic pain and rely on opioid medications for pain management.
In response, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) created the Preclinical Screening Platform for Pain (PSPP) to identify and profile non-addictive therapeutics for pain.
The PSPP is an efficient, rigorous, one-stop screening resource to accelerate discovery of effective, non-addictive, non-opioid pain therapies. The program offers testing including an assessment of in vitro and pharmacokinetic profiles, side effect profiles, abuse liability, and efficacy in models relevant to human pain conditions. A one-page summary of the PSPP can be found here.
Confidentiality
NINDS recognizes the importance of confidentiality to the success of the PSPP and its participants. A signed participant agreement is required for consideration of entry into the program. The participant agreement defines the legal parameters for the partnership and protects the participant’s IP. All screening and other communication activities are performed in strict confidence. Chemical structures are considered proprietary unless otherwise specified by the participant. PSPP evaluation of an asset is agreed upon by participants in collaboration with PSPP personnel. To further ensure confidentiality and blinding, the PSPP assigns each newly submitted compound a unique number code to be used in communications, tracking, and analysis. Screening personnel are blinded to both the structure and the source of submitted compounds, and the PSPP provides screening results exclusively to the asset owner.
About the Website
The PSPP website aims to provide public access to our screening workflow, testing protocols, and non-confidential data. You can visit the Models tab of the PSPP website to learn more about the PSPP workflow used to guide the testing of assets through a sequence of assays. On that page, you can also find descriptions of the models and endpoints used to assess assets in the program. Data generated with PSPP positive and negative controls can be found by visiting the Database tab, with more data to be added as it is collected.
