OliPass Corporation announced that the dosing of pain killer OLP-1002 commenced for a Phase 2a trial in osteoarthritis patients with pain. The Phase 2a study was approved by the Australian regulatory agency in October last year. The Phase 2a trial is of a two stage adaptive design.

The first stage is an open label study to identify an optimum dose range of the efficacy profile, in which patients receive a single subcutaneous injection of 1 ~ 80 mcg (microgram) OLP-1002. The second stage shall be a placebo-controlled double blind study to evaluate two doses of OLP-1002 selected based on the findings from the first stage. The global market of pain killers is estimated to be as large as USD 100 billion per year.

Considering the market is currently prevailed with cheap generic pain killers with moderate efficacy or compromised safety, however, the market potential is certainly far larger. Lack of safe and effective pain killers triggered the outbreak of opioid crisis. There are huge unmet medical needs for pain killers with strong efficacy and good safety.