The focus of QRxPharma’s lead products is the market for moderate to severe pain. Common conditions that are treated with drugs of this type are arthritis, cancer, post surgical pain and back pain. QRxPharma conducted Phase II trials for its dual opioid on patients experiencing pain as a result of some of these conditions. As a result of successful outcomes from studies, QRxPharma has now been cleared by the FDA to conduct Phase III trials on patients with moderate to severe lower back pain and osteoarthritis. It is anticipated that when on the market, QRxPharma’s products will have a broad label indication for any form of moderate to severe pain.

The market for treatment of moderate to severe pain is commonly classified as a specialty pharmaceutical market, and is served by a number of pharmaceutical firms in the pain therapy area. Opioids are highly regulated by authorities such as the FDA and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in the US, and the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia.

The first target market for QRxPharma’s pain therapy drugs is the US. This is the largest and most commercially attractive market for pain drugs in the world. The total market value of prescription opioid sales in the US was US$6.6 billion in 2005, just over 70% of the global total. The opioid market in the US has grown on average by 13% each year since 2001.

The market for opioid drugs can be broken up into drugs for the immediate relief of pain (intravenous or IV and immediate release or IR) and drugs for the relief of pain over time (controlled or extended release CR or ER), which is typically a number of hours. Q8012 IV is an intravenous drug, Q8003IR is an immediate release drug and Q8011CR is a controlled release drug.

• Q8003 IR – Immediate release opioid combination product for acute pain
• Q8012 IV – Intravenous opioid combination product for immediate hospital based post-surgical pain
• Q8011 CR – Sustained release opioid combination product for chronic pain