Two new long-acting drugs might cut number of migraines, studies show

New, long-acting drugs may hold hope for millions of people who often suffer migraines. Studies of two of these medicines, given as shots every month or so, found they cut the frequency of the notoriously painful and disabling headaches.

The drugs are the first preventive medicines developed specifically for migraines. They work by interfering with a substance involved in modifying nerve signaling and progression of pain and symptoms.

“It’s a whole new direction” for treatment and an important advance for people who don’t want to take or aren’t helped by the daily pills sometimes used now to prevent recurrences, said Dr. Andrew Hershey, neurology chief at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

He had no role in the research but has tested other migraine drugs and wrote a commentary published with the studies last week by the New England Journal of Medicine.

Migraines plague more than a billion people worldwide, more than 38 million in the U.S. alone.

They’re more severe than an ordinary headache — throbbing, squeezing pain and pressure, often accompanied by vision problems, sensitivity to light, noise or smells and nausea.

One study tested erenumab, from Amgen and Novartis, in about 900 people who averaged eight migraines a month.

For six months, they were given monthly shots into the abdomen of a high dose of the drug, a low dose or a dummy medicine.

The number of days they suffered migraines each month dropped by three to four in the drug groups and two in the placebo group. Half of the patients on the higher dose saw migraine days cut at least in half.

“I very definitely benefited,” said Anne Vickers, who got the lower dose through one of the study leaders at Mercy Hospital St. Louis in Missouri.

“I can have anywhere from 15 to 18 headaches per month, and probably five of those days are migraines,” but that dropped 40 percent on the drug, she said. “I have three kids, so for me it meant having more days when I was able to live my everyday life.”

The second study tested fremanezumab from Teva Pharmaceutical, for chronic migraine, defined as headaches on 15 or more days per month, at least eight of them migraines.

About 1,000 patients were given monthly shots for three months: One third got the drug each time, another third got the drug the first time and then dummy shots the next two times, and the rest got dummy shots each time.

Monthly headache days dropped by four to five in groups given the drug and by two to three for those given dummy treatments.

No worrisome side effects emerged, but the studies were very short, so long-term safety and effectiveness are unknown.