Abstract
Available bronchodilators can satisfy many of the needs of patients suffering from airway disorders, but they often do not relieve symptoms and their long-term use raises safety concerns. Therefore, there is interest in developing new classes that could help to overcome the limits that characterise the existing classes.
At least nine potential new classes of bronchodilators have been identified: 1) selective phosphodiesterase inhibitors; 2) bitter-taste receptor agonists; 3) E-prostanoid receptor 4 agonists; 4) Rho kinase inhibitors; 5) calcilytics; 6) agonists of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ; 7) agonists of relaxin receptor 1; 8) soluble guanylyl cyclase activators; and 9) pepducins. They are under consideration, but they are mostly in a preclinical phase and, consequently, we still do not know which classes will actually be developed for clinical use and whether it will be proven that a possible clinical benefit outweighs the impact of any adverse effect.
It is likely that if developed, these new classes may be a useful addition to, rather than a substitution of, the bronchodilator therapy currently used, in order to achieve further optimisation of bronchodilation.
Abstract
There is a real interest among researchers and the pharmaceutical industry in developing novel bronchodilators. There are several new opportunities; however, they are mostly in a preclinical phase. They could better optimise bronchodilation. http://bit.ly/2lW1q39
Footnotes
Submitted article, peer reviewed
Conflict of interest: M. Cazzola has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: P. Rogliani has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: M.G. Matera has nothing to disclose.
- Received July 30, 2019.
- Accepted September 3, 2019.
- Copyright ©ERS 2019.
This article is open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence 4.0.