Recent trends in neuropathic pain patents.

Neuropathic pain (NP) is one of the most important health problems faced nowadays. NP is a chronic disease that cannot be treated like other pain conditions because it is developed from a nerve injury that evolves into a permanent dysfunction of the central and/or peripheral nervous system. Therefore, it involves the participation of several systems and should be viewed as a multi-factorial disease that needs a whole new pharmacological strategy in order to achieve the desired pain relief. Areas covered: The Espacenet site was used as the main source in order to perform the patent research for NP treatment. This review covers the patents with relevant approaches for NP treatment from 2014 until today. Expert opinion: Our patent research has shown that there is not a consensus approach to treat NP in any of its forms. In our opinion, the approach regarding NP needs to be like cancer's approach. As there are different types of cancer and different ways to treat them, the same needs to be done for NP. Currently, there are several promising targets, which corroborates that this is a wide-open research area. For these reasons, neuropathic pain is a therapeutic field full of potential for innovation.