A privately held pharmaceutical company in Bozeman has received a $5.3 million federal grant to support the further development of a drug to replace opioids in treating post-operative pain.

SiteOne Therapeutics announced the grant Thursday morning from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and its Helping End Addition Long-term program.

Stan E. Abel, CEO of SiteOne Therapeutics, said the funding is directed at the company's lead therapeutic candidate, known as ST-2427.

"This grant represents a significant milestone for SiteOne as we continue to advance the ST-2427 program toward the clinic," Abel said in a statement. “ST-2427 will potentially block pain signals without affecting the central nervous system, thus avoiding the significant side effects and addiction potential of opioid pain medications.”

SiteOne Therapeutics is a private biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Bozeman with a research laboratory in San Francisco. The company develops pain therapeutics to safely treat acute and chronic pain without the potential side-effects of opioids.

"Our approach, which leverages natural sodium channel inhibitors, has enabled the development of a robust pipeline of potent and selective drug candidates targeting NaV1.7,” said John Hunter, one of the company's principal investigators.

We believe that our lead compound, ST-2427, has transformative potential for the treatment of pain without opioids, and we look forward to beginning clinical studies, which we expect to initiate in 2020."

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