{"doi":"10.1093/pm/pnae130","title":"Transforming pain medicine: the power of collaboration, entrepreneurship, and innovation","abstract":"The etiology of chronic pain can be difficult to pinpoint, and the condition often resists many treatments. Conservative approaches using non-opioid medications often offer inadequate relief, while opioids pose significant risks of dependence and sedation, achieving on average 30% reduction in pain intensity.1 Despite the risks, pain management has historically relied heavily on opioids. With 20% of US adults experiencing chronic pain in 2021, the need for innovative treatments—ones that not only alleviate pain but also address its underlying causes—has become evident.2 In fact, recent data indicate that chronic pain has become a more common diagnosis than diabetes, depression, or hypertension, all of which may be linked to its development.3–5 As the complexity of chronic pain becomes more apparent, greater collaboration across pain-related specialties becomes essential for developing holistic solutions. The complexity of chronic pain arises from a variety of factors, including both physiological and social determinants of health. As a result, contemporary approaches integrate multiple pain-related specialties (Figure 1). In fact, the 2019 “Pain Management Best Practices Interagency Task Force Report” by the US Department of Health and Human Services endorsed multimodal and multidisciplinary strategies as the most effective treatments for both acute and chronic pain.6 Such programs offer a broad range of treatments including medications, restorative therapies, invasive interventions, and care that addresses the social and psychological aspects of pain (Table 1). These programs, despite variance in content and duration, consistently show significant improvements in pain, mood, daily activities, and quality of life over time.6–8 Building on this success, integrative therapies like acupuncture have gained acceptance among both patients and clinicians, with clinical evidence increasingly supporting their use in areas such as cancer pain management.9 At their core, these therapies combine conventional medicine with holistic practices that address emotional, mental, and cultural dimensions of healing, thereby addressing both the physical and non-physical contributors to pain and ultimately enhancing patient experience and outcomes. Disciplines and innovation. Interdisciplinary approaches and complementary therapies for acute and chronic pain. A growing number of institutions are driving advances in pain management by guiding innovators from idea to commercialization by offering educational, business, and financial support. For example, the Stanford Pain Relief Innovations Lab offers the “Empowered Relief” class, which disseminates holistic pain relief techniques that has been shown to be as effective as multiple cognitive behavioral therapy sessions. Similarly, the Harvard Medical Device Innovation Initiative supports student-led ventures such as Poly6 Biotechnologies, which developed implantable devices to prevent pain from abdominal and pelvic adhesions. Healthcare innovation challenges, such as those hosted by MIT Hacking Medicine, foster creative solutions for holistic pain management by bringing together diverse professionals and providing a platform to showcase their concepts. These initiatives help entrepreneurs transition their ideas from concept to commercialization, assisting them in securing the necessary funding and partnerships. For instance, the American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM) hosted 175 companies from 30 states and 15 countries at innovation challenges over the past 3 years, with finalists raising millions in funding through AAPM's support. Notable successes include Lutroo, which developed AI-enhanced pain imaging technology and received SBIR and NIH HEAL Initiative funding; Wellness Wits, a digital health solution for chronic pain, which partnered with IBM and scaled its operations; Vanish Therapeutics, which advanced its novel drug delivery systems with significant SBIR and venture capital funding; and Fara","journal":"Pain Medicine","year":2025,"id":549906,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9547,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1445301,"name":"P. L. A. Vu","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1445302,"name":"Mali Halac","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1240679,"name":"Siri Bohacek","orcid":"0000-0002-1137-3350","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1022845,"name":"Barlas Benkli","orcid":"0000-0003-4280-0535","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1444578,"name":"David S. Jevotovsky","orcid":"0009-0004-0236-2600","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":815584,"name":"Julio Vega","orcid":"0000-0002-0140-3392","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1445303,"name":"Aliza Hirani","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":381109,"name":"Vwaire Orhurhu","orcid":"0000-0002-2794-738X","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":617897,"name":"Charles A. Odonkor","orcid":"0000-0002-8280-4015","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1010828,"name":"Jesse M. Ehrenfeld","orcid":"0000-0003-3427-0140","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1051690,"name":"Iskander L.C. Shadid","orcid":"0000-0003-2424-5363","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1445304,"name":"Amanda Azadian","orcid":null,"position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1445305,"name":"Brian Mayrsohn","orcid":null,"position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":825967,"name":"Albert Kwon","orcid":null,"position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1241207,"name":"Zishan Hirani","orcid":null,"position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1241209,"name":"Uzondu Osuagwu","orcid":null,"position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":854560,"name":"Justin E. Bird","orcid":"0000-0002-7537-3018","position":17,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1391674,"name":"Christopher Gilligan","orcid":"0000-0003-4769-9907","position":18,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":384723,"name":"Beth D. Darnall","orcid":"0000-0003-3590-511X","position":19,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1444579,"name":"Kayode Williams","orcid":"0000-0002-3439-308X","position":20,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":412129,"name":"W. Michael Hooten","orcid":"0000-0001-5645-6355","position":21,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":333364,"name":"Shriya S. Srinivasan","orcid":"0000-0002-2508-1324","position":22,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":715436,"name":"Salman Hirani","orcid":"0000-0002-9614-3211","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":11,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:54:12.321988Z","pmid":"39745892","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}