Three takeaways from the Non-Opioid Pain Therapeutics Summit 2026
Article
In January 2026, Dolinnov's CEO Grégoire Serra attended the Non-Opioid Pain Therapeutics Summit in Boston (27–29 January), a meeting of drug developers, researchers and investors working on new pain treatments. Developing pain drugs remains very difficult. But with the first approval of a new class of non-opioid painkiller (Vertex's suzetrigine, approved in the US in January 2025), the field is entering a new phase. Three points stood out.
1. From whole-brain drugs to therapies that act at the source
Many pain drugs act on the central nervous system as a whole, which brings side effects such as sedation or dependence. The field is now moving towards targeted therapies that treat pain where it starts: in the peripheral sensory neurons. The dorsal root ganglia (DRG), where the cell bodies of these neurons sit, have become the main focus.
2. The mechanism matters more than the molecule
Sodium channels such as Nav1.7 and Nav1.8 are still widely explored, but their limits are now broadly acknowledged. Blocking one channel quiets a neuron without necessarily bringing it back to normal. As Clifford Woolf put it at the summit: « Reducing neuronal excitability is not the same as restoring normal neuronal function. »
3. Translation to humans is the real bottleneck
There was broad agreement that many approaches work in animals and fail in patients. In John Markman's words: « Animal efficacy is not the problem. Translation is. » The expected standards are now clear: testing on human DRG neurons, using patient-derived models, and finding early biomarkers of pain, which remain very hard to find.
Where Dolinnov fits
Dolinnov develops a Precision Pump Modulator: rather than blocking an ion channel, it acts on FXYD2, a regulator of the sodium-potassium pump in pain-sensing neurons, to bring their excitability back to normal at the source. Our programme addresses these points directly: it acts in the DRG, it modulates the pump rather than blocking a channel, and the restricted expression of FXYD2 in sensory neurons has been confirmed in human tissue (Scientific Reports, 2016).
About Dolinnov
Dolinnov is a preclinical-stage biotech company founded in October 2024 in Montpellier, France, by Grégoire Serra, Stéphanie Ventéo and Jean-Philippe Annereau. It develops Precision Pump Modulators, a new class of non-opioid treatments for chronic pain, starting with an antisense oligonucleotide targeting FXYD2 in pain-sensing neurons.
