Kavya Gopal
Senior Vice President & Disease Area Executive for Pain Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Seminars
Thursday 28th January 2027
Panel Discussion: How Will the Next Generation of Sodium Channel Therapies Differentiate in Pain?
9:30 am
- Following the first approval of a NaV1.8 inhibitor, where do the greatest opportunities for differentiation lie across NaV1.8, NaV1.7, NaV1.9 and other emerging sodium channel targets in acute, chronic and neuropathic pain?
- How should developers balance efficacy, safety, tolerability, tissue selectivity, CNS penetration and dosing convenience when designing next-generation sodium channel therapies?
- Is meaningful improvement now more likely to come through better molecule design, target engagement and patient selection, or through targeting different sodium channel subtypes and pain mechanisms?
- Which pain populations are most likely to benefit from specific sodium channel approaches, and how can developers better match mechanism to underlying disease biology and pain phenotype?
