A new drug to prevent migraine was associated with fewer headache hours for people with chronic migraine within three to seven days after the first injection, according to a study published in the June 8, 2016, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Chronic migraine is defined as headaches occurring at least 15 days per month. Study participants had migraine attacks for an average of 20 years prior to treatment.
“Chronic migraine affects about 1 percent of all adults, yet less than 5 percent of those people receive a correct diagnosis and appropriate treatment,” said study author Marcelo Bigal, MD, PhD, of Teva Pharmaceuticals in Frazer, Penn., which developed the new drug, called TEV-48125. “Most people who receive preventive medication for chronic migraine stop using them, and one reason for that is the drugs can take a long time to become effective. If these results can be confirmed with larger studies, this could be exciting for people with migraine.”
TEV-48125 is an antibody that blocks the calcitonin gene-related peptide that plays a role in migraine pain.
The study involved 261 people who had migraine for an average of 18 years. They had an average of 162 hours of headaches a month and an average of 22 days with headache per month.
