Yale Study Finds Epilepsy Drug Lacosamide May Reverse Osteoarthritis via Targeted Hydrogel Delivery
Yale researchers discovered that lacosamide, an FDA-approved epilepsy medication, can simultaneously reduce pain and repair cartilage in osteoarthritis when delivered via a specialized hydrogel. The study, published in Bioactive Materials, identifies the Nav1.7 protein as a dual target for both pain signaling and cartilage degradation. By using a temperature-sensitive collagen hydrogel to keep the drug localized in the joint, the treatment outperformed daily oral doses in preclinical tests, offering a potential path to disease modification rather than just symptom management.