Hearing loss: The final frontier of pharmacology

Despite a prevalence greater than cancer or diabetes, there are no currently approved drugs for the treatment of hearing loss. Research over the past two decades has led to a vastly improved understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms in the cochlea that lead to hearing deficits and the advent of novel strategies to combat them. Combined with innovative methods that enable local drug delivery to the inner ear, these insights have paved the way for promising therapies that are now under clinical investigation. In this review, we will outline this renaissance of cochlear biology and drug development, focusing on noise, age-related, and chemotherapy-induced hearing dysfunction.