Empowered Patient Podcast

Anthony Mack, CEO of Virpax Pharma, is developing non-addictive pain drugs focusing on repurposing existing molecules and improving the delivery platform to enhance bioavailability and sustained delivery. With an initial focus on postoperative pain management and preventing opioid tolerance, their product, Probudur, is a long-lasting local anesthetic for sustained pain control. The asset Envelta uses a molecular envelope technology to protect enkephalin as it passes through the blood-brain barrier to attach to delta receptors in the brain to control pain.   Anthony explains, "Now, in the case of the enkephalin asset, as far as tolerance is concerned, we have a product that isn't enkephalin. It's a peptide, and peptides are endogenous materials already in our bodies. Now, we can't generate enough to have pain control, so it would be nice if we could administer them. If an enkephalin can get past the blood-brain barrier, it attaches to the brain's delta receptors. There are immune receptors in the brain, too,