For all the medical advances of recent decades, pain continues to take a high toll in personal suffering and financial expense:

• Pain is reportedly the most common symptom that leads to patients to seek medical care.
• Pain results in more than 50 million lost workdays in the US every year.
• Pain or physical discomfort disrupts the sleep of some 42 million at least a few nights a week.

Source: Pain Management Review and Outlook, PharmaLive Series, February 2010

NSAIDs are prescribed for pain more than 89 million times a year in the US alone. 

Sources: SDI Health, LLC 2010

NSAIDs exert their analgesic effect largely by preventing the synthesis of prostaglandins, a family of chemicals associated with pain and inflammation. NSAIDs inhibit cyclooxygenase, an enzyme that catalyses the synthesis of prostaglandins. 

Sources: IMS Health Inc., 2010