Current Drug Development Overview: Targeting Voltage-Gated Calcium Channels for the Treatment of Pain

Abstract

Voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCCs) are targeted to treat pain conditions. Since the discovery of their relation to pain processing control, they are investigated to find new strategies for better pain control. This review provides an overview of naturally based and synthetic VGCC blockers, highlighting new evidence on the development of drugs focusing on the VGCC subtypes as well as mixed targets with pre-clinical and clinical analgesic effects.

Keywords

• analgesic
• antinociception
• calcium signaling
• drug development
• pain transmission