It has potential as an analgesic and as a treatment to addiction of certain drugs.

Most opioid analgesics act through delta, mu, and kappa opioid receptors; however, SCH-221510 is instead an agonist at the nociceptin receptor.

[1] Classical opioid analgesics (such as morphine) usually have effects such as constipation, hypoventilation and addiction.

[2] However, by acting through a different receptor, SCH-221510 seems to be lacking the undesirable effects of morphine at equianalgesic doses.

SCH-221510 might be an option in the treatment of certain drug addictions: it is able to decrease ethanol self-administration[3] and was able to decrease self-administration of remifentanil, a fentanyl analogue, in a study,[4]