Preclinical research activities in relation to
pain typically involve the 'holy trinity' of nociceptive, inflammatory and
neuropathic pain for purposes of target validation and defining target product profiles of novel
analgesic compounds. For some reason it seems that
headache or
migraine are rarely considered as additional entities to explore. Frontline medications used in the treatment of, for example, inflammatory
pain, neuropathic pain and
migraine (
NSAIDs versus
pregabalin/
duloxetine versus
triptans) reveal distinct differences in pathophysiology that partially explain this approach. Nevertheless, for many patients enduring
chronic pain, regardless of aetiology, high unmet needs remain. By focusing more on commonalities shared between
neuropathic pain and
headache disorders such as
migraine, drug discovery efforts could be spread more efficiently across a larger indication area. Here, some of the most commonly used models and methods employed within '
pain and
migraine' drug development will be presented. Recent advances within these disciplines suggest that, with the addition of a few extra carefully chosen ancillary models and/or endpoints, the relative value in terms of resources used, reciprocal flow of information and net worth of a 'typical' package could be increased substantially for the
pain and
migraine fields.