(Bloomberg) – So far, the fight against opioid abuse hasfocused on treating addiction and curbing abuse.

In February, President Barack Obama asked Congress for $1.1billion to fund health care for addicts, and last monthCongress allocated $181 million in grants for stateprograms.

But help could be on the way from scientists — help that couldradically alter the American landscape of painkiller addiction and untimelydeath.

Doesn't interfere with breathing

U.S. and German researchers have developed a pain-relievingcompound, chemically unrelated to current opioids, that doesn'tinterfere with breathing — the main cause of prescriptionpainkiller fatalities. The researchers introduced the compound,called PZM21, in a study published on Wednesday inNature.

Development of the drug, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, comes at atime when the number of Americans who die each year because ofoverdoses (more than 47,000) has exceeded the number killed incar accidents. About 28,000 of those overdoses involvedopioids, four times more than occurred in 1999, according to theCenters for Disease Controland Prevention. More than half involved prescription drugs.

“We're cautiously optimistic,” said Aashish Manglik, aninstructor in molecular and cellular physiology at StanfordUniversity's School of Medicine and one of the study's co-leadauthors. He noted that the finding “hints at the possibility thatthere may be a possible way to separate analgesia from some ofthese side effects.”

The study also involved researchers from the University ofCalifornia-San Francisco, the University of North Carolina, andFriedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg.

New molecule kills pain

The new molecule targets the brain-mediated emotionalcomponent of pain. This allows it to kill pain just as well asmorphine does, without the side effects of respiratory suppressionand dopamine-driven addiction in the brain. (Regular painkillerstarget both the brain-mediated and reflexive response aspects ofpain, while this drug addresses only the brain-mediated response.)The new drug also causes less constipation and doesn't affectspinal cord reflexive responses as traditional narcoticsdo, according to the study.

The difference in addiction was shown in experiments involvingmice. The specimens showed no preference for test chambersthat included a solution containing PZM21, comparedwith chambers that didn't. In the same test, when one of thechambers had morphine, mice spent more time there. Bothresults distinguished the new compound from other painkillersand from Oliceridine, a comparable molecule developed by Trevena,Inc. that's in clinical trials, Manglik said.

“What we've done is find new chemical matter, molecules that arereally quite different from previously characterized opiates,” hesaid.

Related: Opioid use decreasing in workers' comp: What'snext?

The new compound was identified using 2012findings by Manglik and others in the lab of BrianKobilka, a Stanford professor of molecular and cellular physiologyand a Nobel Laureate. (Kobilka was a co-senior author of the newpaper.) In the earlier research, scientists described theatomic structure of the mu opioid receptor, through whichpainkillers such as morphine act. Understanding how thereceptor interacts with morphine or other drugs let the PZM21developers replicate morphine's benefits without setting offchemical reactions that suppress breathing.

With that information in hand, researchers were able to screenabout 3 million compounds, using 4 trillion virtual simulations, tosee which ones produced the right interaction with the mu opioidreceptor. They came up with a short list of 23 candidates andfound one that caused the right reactions after interactingwith the mu opioid receptor. Then they strengthened it by afactor of 1,000.

Years of human testing ahead

Manglik estimates that it will take multiple years for thecompound to be tested in humans, noting the importanceof such trials to learn more about PZM21's addictiveproperties and safety. “The real experiment for a lot of thesethings is going to have to happen in humans,” he said, adding thataddiction is “really a human disease.”

While more testing is done to replace addictive opioids, thework on PZM21 may bear fruit in many other areas of medicine.The researchers studied a large family of receptors thatcommunicate messages to cells, not just the mu opioidreceptor, so a similar approach could yield new types of drugsfor other conditions.

“It's a good example of how the type of work that we do has thepotential for impact in pretty large areas of medicine,” Mangliksaid.

Related: Managing pharmaceuticals: A life of claimexperience

Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rightsreserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten,or redistributed.