Migraine Meds That Kill Pain Before It Starts May Soon Be on the Market
Patients suffering from migraine attacks can now try out a new class of drugs, which experts say show great potential towards effective migraine management.
The drug which is touted to be the first of its kind, works by targeting migraine prevention thereby alleviating migraine related symptoms for the patients.
Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) are neurotransmitters that are in charge of transmitting signals to the brain and the rest of the body. Scientists found that CGRP monoclonal antibodies have been successful towards the management of chronic migraine.
"We've known for a long time that CGRP was involved in the mechanism of migraines, so during migraine attacks you can measure elevation of CGRP in the blood of the person having the migraine," said Dr. Richard Lipton, director of the Montefiore Headache Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. "If you treat it, CGRP blood levels fall."
Many companies have been testing the effects of substances that are known to affect CGRP levels in the body. Among them Teva pharmaceuticals recently submitted its results to the American Headache Society.
During their trials, the researchers found that migraine patients noticed a substantial drop in the number of headaches they experienced one week into the trial. Half the participants reported that the frequency of their migraines reduced by fifty percent or more.
"The potential of these new compounds is enormous and gives us real hope that effective specific treatments for migraine may be on the near horizon," said Peter J. Goadsby, MD, PhD, Chief of the UCSF Headache Center and chair of the American Headache Society's annual Scientific Meeting. "The development of CGRP antibodies offers the simple, yet elegant and long awaited option for migraine patients to finally be treated with migraine preventives; it's a truly landmark development."
