Clinical trial failures of two drugs for hearing loss and tinnitus underscore pitfalls for a nascent area of drug development, but lessons learned may help in navigating the uncharted path to approval.

Pharmacological inhibition of Notch signalling partially reverses hearing loss in mice by enabling the generation of new auditory hair cells in the inner ear.

The mechanisms underlying hearing loss following traumatic noise exposure are not well understood. In this study, Chen et al. show that the cellular energy depletion that occurs following traumatic noise exposure results in activation of small GTPases and downstream effectors that mediate apoptotic and necrotic cell death.