The Internet is abuzz with medical sites and journalists praising researchers for a promising new pain drug called conolidine.
Extracted from the bark of the tabernaemontana divaricate tree, chemists recently devised a way to synthesise conolidine and one trial with mice suggested that it could reduce inflammatory pain. While any news like this is always encouraging and should rightly be applauded, there are many steps and years before it might be commercially available.
All the basic sciences still need to be undertaken with cell studies and animal studies to evaluate its safety and efficacy. It’s not as if the bark of this plant has been in the natural food chain for centuries, so human trials would then need to commence. Once again testing for safety and efficacy and this all assumes it can be synthesized on a large scale and commercially viable.
