Snails give speedy pain relief!

Snail's venom is the unlikely source for a pain-killing drug said to be 1,000 times more potent than morphine, traditionally used for those suffering from conditions such as cancer and arthritis.

Ziconotide has been synthesised from one of hundreds of venomous sea snails that live in shallow tropical waters. Specialists are hailing it as a breakthrough in the treatment of pain.

Opiate-based drugs such as morphine have the drawback of being addictive, making patients drowsy and losing their effect if administered over a long time.

Pharmaceutical firm Elan is expected to gain approval for ziconotide following trials in Europe and the United States. In the latest trial - results of which were published last month in the Journal Of The American Medical Association - almost 60 per cent of patients receiving the drug gained partial or full pain relief.

Doctors treating pain say that a 60 per cent score is high, as often it is difficult to find just one drug that will work on a patient. Patients were given ziconotide after they had failed to respond to other treatments. The drug is slowly released into the bloodstream through a small infusion pump in the patient's stomach.

A major benefit is that it can be used long-term without the dose wearing off and without it having to be increased significantly. Scientists hope that other drugs can be obtained from sea snails such as Conus Magnus, from which ziconotide has been developed. And they believe that snail venom - conotoxin - can be used to help treat other conditions such as epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. There are hundreds of species of sea snail and each has its own set of toxins, which means there could be as many as 50,000 conotoxins.

Conotoxins could treat muscle spasticity following spinal injury and epilepsy, which is resistant to traditional medicines. A broad spectrum anti-epileptic agent is in the first stage of clinical trials.