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In this week’s edition of InnovationRx, we look at possible pain treatments from cannabis, risks of new vaccine restrictions, virtual clinical trials at the Mayo Clinic, GSK’s $30 billion U.S. manufacturing commitment, and more. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here. Despite their addictive nature, opioids continue to be a major treatment for pain due to a lack of effective alternatives. In an effort to boost new drugs, the FDA released new guidelines for non-opioid painkillers last week. But making these drugs hasn’t been easy. Vertex Pharmaceuticals received FDA approval for its non-opioid Journavx in January, then abandoned a next generation drug after a failed clinical trial earlier this summer. Acadia similarly abandoned a promising candidate after a failed trial in 2022. One possible basis for non-opioids might be cannabis. Earlier this year, researchers at Washington University at St. Louis and Stanford published a study showing that a cannabis-derived compound successfully eased pain in mice with minimal side effects. Munich-based pharmaceutical company Vertanical is perhaps the furthest along in this quest. It is developing a cannabinoid-based extract to treat chronic pain it hopes will soon become an approved medicine, first in the European Union and eventually in the United States. The drug, currently called Ver-01, packs enough low levels of cannabinoids (including THC) to relieve pain, but not so much that patients get high. Founder Clemens Fischer, a 50-year-old medical doctor and serial pharmaceutical and supplement entrepreneur, hopes it will become the first cannabis-based painkiller prescribed by physicians and covered by insurance. Fischer founded Vertanical, with his business partner Madlena Hohlefelder, in 2017, and has invested more than $250 million of his own money in it. With a cannabis cultivation site and drug manufacturing plant in Denmark, Vertanical has successfully passed phase III clinical trials in Germany and expects…

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Filed under: News - @ September 17, 2025 9:26 pm