Pappas Ventures co-founded Afferent in December 2009, after recognizing a novel mechanism with high potential in the treatment of chronic pain and other areas of substantial medical need.

Afferent is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing first-in-class treatments for chronic pain by targeting P2X3 receptors in peripheral nerves, where pain-causing stimuli are detected. This pathway offers the potential for pain treatments that will avoid CNS side effects and abuse liability, the principal factors that impair the use of currently available pain medications.

Afferent represents a transformative approach for treating chronic pain, an area of exceedingly high unmet medical need, without the safety and tolerability burden of therapeutics available today.