Is Medication Or is Placebo Response Making You Feel Better

DARA BioSciences, Inc. (Nasdaq:DARA), Raleigh, N.C., has reported that researchers studying a new medication for neuropathic pain have reported intriguing findings about placebo response from a Phase 2a proof-of-concept study. They presented their findings at the 2011 International Conference on Accelerating the Development of Enhanced Pain Treatments. Their findings could lead to more accurate results in future similar pain medication trials. In clinical pain trials, patients are given either the drug being evaluated or an identically appearing placebo, then report on whether the drug has helped their pain by rating it on a scale from 0 to 10. Since pain is such a subjective symptom, patient self-reporting is the only way researchers can ascertain the degree of pain management.