Research
Sensory hyperexcitability is observed in many different neurological disorders, including Pain, Tinnitus, Pruritus and many more. Sensory hyperexcitability related disorders impact millions of people worldwide. Moreover, these conditions have a dire effect on the quality of life of patients and present a significant operational and economic burden on healthcare systems.
The multitude of patients suffering from sensory hyperexcitability disorders underscores the significant unmet medical need, ranging from conditions with no pharmacological treatment available such as Tinnitus, to those with multiple available treatments but unsatisfactory efficacy and significant side effects, including drug abuse and addiction, such as pain and pruritus.
Specifically for chronic pain, 1 in 10 adults globally is diagnosed with chronic pain each year, culminating to $70B revenue in the global pain management market in 2022. All the currently available standard of care therapies carries major drawbacks. Opioids and NSAIDs hold the largest portion of the market while 3/4 of drug overdose cases are opioid-related and similarly, an estimated 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur annually among patients with osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis.
Thus, a major unmet need exists for treatments that provide efficacy while avoiding significant side effects and addiction.
THE UNMET NEED
Bsense develops a single molecule that binds two validated pain ion-channel targets, inhibiting TRPV1 to suppress pain signal sensation and activating Kv7.2/3 to dampen sensory neuron hyperexcitability. Bsense proprietary, non-opioid small molecules, derived from several SAR cycles of diphenylamine diclofenac, bind to the voltage-sensing domains of both ion channels in an analogous fashion to tarantula spider toxins, serving as gating modifiers of both channels. The new mechanism of action identified by Bsense enables our compounds to enhance potency only where both targets are co-localized and active, within the activated sensory neuron.
In vivo, the Bsense specific potency gain, in these co-localized targets in active sensory neurons, provides significant safety margins and complete separation from off-target activities and class-related side effects of each of the targets alone.
Our compounds show high potency in different chronic pain and tinnitus animal models show casing the potential to treat wide range of sensory hyperexcitability related disorders.
THE TECHNOLOGY
PIPELINE
Discovery
Preclinical POC
Preclinical Dev.
Phase I
Pain
BSEN760
Dual modulator of Kv7.2/3 and TRPV1
Tinnitus
Dual modulator of Kv7.2/3 and TRPV1
Pruritus
Dual modulator of Kv7.2/3 and TRPV1
Undisclosed