While there can be many types of gut and abdominal pain, one of the most common is chronic abdominal pain, which occurs for example as a result of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Finding effective treatments to target gut pain without affecting gut function is particularly challenging.

AusHealth is supporting studies into whether novel peptides originating from spider venom can specifically block gut pain receptors and treat chronic abdominal pain.

One of the benefits of the technology is that it is expected that the treatment will be a non-addictive solution to prolonged pain management of gut conditions.

AusHealth’s Spider Venom project is currently under development with the expectation that it will shortly progress to clinical proof of concept trials.