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

The NSAID market is one of the largest therapeutic classes in the U.S., with approximately 106 million prescriptions written in 2011.

Sources: IMS Health, National Prescription Audit, Oct 2012

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