Eli Lilly has announced a license agreement to acquire the worldwide rights for CNTX-0290 from Centrexion Therapeutics, a company focused on developing non-opioid, non-addictive therapeutics for the treatment of chronic pain. The deal comes as safety concerns related to joint destruction, which crippled the entire nerve growth factor inhibitor class in 2010, threaten the fate of lead Phase III candidate, tanezumab, which would leave Lilly with no late-stage pain therapies in its pipeline.