Future trends in non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug therapy

In assessing future trends in non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) development, there are four areas of particular interest: (i) Are the existing classifications still useful? New drugs currently under development may not be covered by the classification as it stands today. (ii) What are the new targets for drug development? The key objectives are to develop drugs with anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties which are not cyclo-oxygenase inhibitors. An area of keen interest is the inhibition of interleukin-1 production. (iii) What are the requirements for new drugs? New agents need to be better tolerated--increasing amounts of data on safety are required by the drug regulatory authorities. (iv) When will patients benefit from the new drugs? Since the development of new drugs remains extremely time-consuming, patients will not benefit from drugs currently undergoing research until at least the mid-1990's. Therefore, since there is no prospect of an alternative to the currently available NSAIDs in the foreseeable future, more theoretical and practical work needs to be undertaken in order for them to be deployed more specifically and selectively.