Tinnitus Research: Where Is Big Pharma?

In reading through the Research News section of Tinnitus Talk, something that strikes me is that all of the companies looking for tinnitus treatments / cures are companies I've never heard of.

Is there any serious research coming out of big pharma companies? For example: J&J, Pfizer, Novartis, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, etc.

If there is research happening at these companies: what are they up to? If there isn't research happening, does anyone know why not?

 

Yes, there is no reason for these companies to be interested in tinnitus because everyone gets used to tinnitus.

 

As far as the larger pharmaceutical companies listed, there may be research, but they aren't required to disclose it. Many of these firms have gotten to the size they are by acquiring the smaller biotech firms that ran on a single drug, or acquiring their technology/research. So, they may be simply in a position to buy, not do it by themselves. Many of the firms listed are conglomerates, with several cash cow subsidiaries bringing in billions already, so the research effort is probably a footnote on a much larger budget.

The smaller biotech firms listed in Research News live and die by the 1 or 2 drugs they have that might address an underlying condition, so they have to make more noise about what they're working on.

Tinnitus by itself isn't a condition that can be treated directly. It is a symptom of a number of underlying causes, or the combination of underlying causes. So, these companies would need to heavily invest in the resolution/treatment of the underlying condition, not the tinnitus itself. This is what you see happening in the research section, for the most part.

 

There is still a big market for treating “things you can used to,” because even if you can get used to it, there is still patient demand for actual treatments, and thus money to be made.

Take depression for example. You can “just get used” to that too, but patients are still willing to buy billions worth of depression treatment (i.e. antidepressants). And correspondingly, big pharma is highly active in depression treatment.

 

I am so offended by the general consensus that tinnitus is not serious and you can treat it only by getting used to it. I am tired of this CBT, TRT, mindfulness, yoga, meditation bullshit. I want a cure. When someone gets common cold, the doctor doesn't tell the patient to practice tai chi, but gives him a drug that works instead.

Why should tinnitus be treated differently? It's an illness as every other. I think that a cure would already be there if prominent psychologists didn't push this habituation bullshit. The Big Pharma doesn't care about it because it feels like a cure is already there in the form of CBT...

No, it's not normal to live with ringing in your ears and act like it's nothing. We want a real cure.

 

What is this magic pill that treats the common cold?

Last I checked there is no treatment or cure for it. Just like there is no treatment or cure for many debilitating diseases.

 

Antibiotics? I don't know, I'm not a doctor but I definitely know that they give something to relieve symptoms and not tell them that they should listen to white noise BS.

 

Common cold is viral. Antibiotics don't do anything for viruses.

My point is that you think much too much of the current state of medicine. Lots of diseases, some much worse than tinnitus, don't have any treatments, let alone cures.

 

But tinnitus is super common yet it has no treatment.

Do you know why am I so stupid when it comes to drugs that treat common cold?

Because it's my nature. It's because I never get normal illnesses. I don't even know what it is like for example going to ENT and they would say oh you got some infection, here take some drops, use it for a week and you will be healthy. Same with GP. I don't remember having an illness which a General Practitioner would solve without sending me further. Maybe in very early childhood.

I don't get common colds, and similar diseases. When I get ill, it's always tinnitus, some weird eye problems, and other weird illnesses with weird symptoms that are chronic and doctors react like "WTF, I have never seen this before."

 

Countries are trying to weaponize tinnitus and vertigo. Foot soldiers would be falling all over themselves. China created a virus that kills.

 

I think he means tinnitus is a symptom. And you take a pseudoephedrine during a cold and tell me it doesn't change your life that day. Tinnitus should be treated the same. It could be. It's simply too difficult as more progress has been made in almost every area of neuroscience except otoneurology imo.

My money is still on Xenon Pharmaceuticals as having the best chance of helping us off label.

 

Their new drug is supposed to be more specific and more potent, right?

 

Yes. I meant for infant seizure disorder with a mutation on the KCNQ channels. Targets Kv7.1.

 

Oh so you meant XEN1101, not XEN496.

Retigabine used to target a bunch of channels, not just that one right? Hence the problems.

I just read XEN496 got fast tracked and orphan drug designation...

I wonder if we could take them long term.

 

I think calling tinnitus a symptom is what downplays severity of this condition. This creates IMHO false impression that tinnitus is an effect of some large number of underlying causes, where in most of the cases it is damage to the inner ear. (Excluding cases of pulsatile tinnitus which is a different beast, and things like acoustic neuroma).

I think tinnitus should not be called symptom but at least a "disorder" like diabetes, which is caused by damage to the pancreas.

Let's hope XEN1101 will make life with tinnitus manageable, until some solutions reversing damage in the inner ear / auditory pathways hit the market.

It is disappointing that a few years ago when Retigabine's nasty side effects were well known, nobody cared to start working on a safer alternative, but they simply removed Retigabine from the market first. Then we have to wait a couple of years for safer alternatives' research to take off. We heard a year ago from Prof. Thanos Tzounopoulos that he has a candidate molecule, but for one year there has been no news.

Update: There has been tweet from Feb 11 from Prof. Thanos Tzounopoulos "Exciting Work by Laura Marinos. A Small-Molecule Potassium Channel Activator Mitigates Tinnitus. We Are Getting Closer to a Clinical Trial." So it seems they are slowly progressing.

 

RL-81 Could Be Promising Drug Candidate for Noise-Induced Tinnitus

I wonder, since this is University research, if they could provide the structure of the molecule to the public. I would have no problem making it and distributing it through some country where the useless FDA doesn't reach.

 

I think that if Big Pharma and governments had the same budget for tinnitus cure as they have for COVID-19, it would be a matter of months till the cure would be available to the general public imo.