Lilly’s Cymbalta Maintains Reduction In Chronic Low Back Pain

New data from a study conduct by Eli Lilly showed that patients with chronic low back pain on Cymbalta (duloxetine HCl) has maintained reductions in pain for 41 weeks. In patients who initially responded to duloxetine, this maintenance of pain reduction was accompanied by further reduction in pain that was significant, as measured by the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) average pain rating.

Reportedly, a total of 181 patients enrolled in the open-label 41-week extension phase of the study, designed to evaluate long-term maintenance of effect in patients with chronic low back pain taking duloxetine 60mg or 120mg once daily.

The company said that the maintenance of effect was assessed in 58 duloxetine patients who had experienced at least 30% pain reduction from baseline during the 13-week, placebo-controlled acute phase of the study.

Vladimir Skljarevski, lead study author and a neurologist and medical fellow at Lilly Research Laboratories, said: “Chronic low back pain is a painful and debilitating condition and this study is an important step in the fight against it.”