At last! Hope on migraines
Monthly jab cuts number of attacks
MILLIONS will benefit from the first new migraine drug in 20 years, a study revealed last night.
The monthly injection, called erebumab, prevents nearly half of migraine attacks for people who have few other treatment options.
The medication, developed by UK scientists over the past three decades, has been submitted for a medical licence in Europe and the US and will be assessed for the NHS in May.
More than eight million Britons – three quarters of them women – suffer migraine attacks, which involve dizziness, nausea and headaches.
The problem affects more people than diabetes, asthma and epilepsy combined – and is the sixth most common cause of disability in the world.
Yet until now there has been no treatment specifically designed to prevent the problem.
Erebumab is the first in a new class of drugs which tackles the protein responsible for a migraine.
The protein – calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) – causes blood vessels intertwined with nerve endings in the head to swell up. Erebumab has an antibody that blocks that process.
Study leader Professor Peter Goadsby of King’s College London, who first highlighted the role of CGRP in migraines in 1985, said: ‘This is an incredibly important step forward. It’s the real deal.
‘At the moment, people who suffer with migraines are stuck between a rock and a hard place. But they can stop losing hope because hope is just around the corner.’
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, involved 955 patients who were given erebumab or a placebo for six months.
At the start of the trial, the participants suffered migraines on an average of 8.3 days a month. Within four months, those who took erebumab had migraines on 3.7 fewer days. Those on the placebo saw their migraines come down by only 1.8 days.
Migraine Action chief executive Simon Evans said: ‘Migraine is too often trivialised as just a headache. In reality, it can be a debilitating, chronic condition that can destroy lives.
‘The effects can last for hours – even days. An option that can prevent migraine and that is well tolerated is therefore sorely needed.’
Erebumab is made by a partnership between drugs giant Novartis and Amgen. But hot on their heels are three other firms – Teva, Eli Lilly and Alder – who are developing very similar drugs in a bid to be the first to reach a global market worth an estimated £6.5billion a year.
Erebumab is the first to have final phase III results published and the first to submit its findings to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the FDA in the US.
Professor Goadsby, who gave away the intellectual property to the drug when he published his first results in the 1990s, said the fact so many companies are competing can only be good for patients. He is working with all four groups and says there is very little to choose between the drugs.
The companies have not yet set a price for the drug.
Dimitrios Georgiopoulos, chief scientific officer of Novartis UK, said: ‘Erenumab is the most significant breakthrough in this field in 20 years and it is now imperative we continue to work with all parties to make this well-tolerated and effective treatment option for migraine available to those who can benefit from it.’
A spokesman for the Scottish Medicines Consortium said: ‘We aim to issue advice on new medicines as soon as possible after they are granted a licence from the EMA. We do not have a submission date for erenumab but will be contacting the company when the EMA has issued its decision.’
‘Biggest advance in 20 years’