A new migraine drug that can halve the length of attacks has been hailed as “the start of real change” in how the condition is treated.
Erenumab, a laboratory-made antibody that blocks a neural brain pathway called CGRP, is the first drug in 20 years proven to prevent migraine attacks.
Phase three trial data on nearly 1,000 patients showed that it typically cut between three and four “migraine days” per month. In half the patients treated, migraine duration was reduced at least by half.
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Lead investigator Prof Peter Goadsby, from King’s College hospital, London, said: “[research trial] Strive … represents an incredibly important step forward for migraine understanding and migraine treatment.”
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The findings, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, clearly showed that blocking the CGRP pathway could reduce the impact of migraine, he said. “The results of Strive represent a real transition for migraine patients from poorly understood, re-purposed treatments, to a specific migraine-designed therapy.”
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“This is probably the first example of a migraine preventing drug that was rationally designed, rather than serendipitously found,” [professor Zameel Cader said].
Read full, original post: Migraine drug could halve the length of attacks, study shows
