Studies at American Headache Society Meeting show promise in new migraine prevention drugs
CGRP antagonists first mechanism-specific treatments developed to prevent migraine
2015-06-17
(Press-News.org) Migraine researchers and clinicians are growing excited about a new class of drugs called Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) monoclonal antibodies, which are showing promise in treating high-frequency episodic migraine and chronic migraine.
"This development is a transformative moment in migraine treatment," said Peter J. Goadsby, MD, PhD, who is chair of the scientific program of the American Headache Society's annual Scientific Meeting. Dr. Goadbsy is Chief of the UCSF Headache Center, and one of the world's leading headache treatment experts and researchers.
"There's no question that we need something better," he said. "In fact, for prevention we really need something designed specifically for migraine," he said, noting that there has not been a new class of anti-migraine drugs since the development and marketing of triptans in 1991 and they are not preventives, just designed to treat migraine attacks.
"Up till now, migraine patients have had limited choices for preventive treatment. Now four pharmaceutical companies are showing positive results in human trials targeting CGRP mechanisms," he said. Scholarly papers on CGRP and on the trials are being presented this week at the meeting, which draws more than 1,000 migraine specialists from around the world.
The new class of therapeutic agents appears to reduce elevated levels of the peptide known as calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), a key driver of migraine pain.
Versions of anti-CGRP therapies are being tested by Alder Pharmaceuticals, Amgen, Eli Lilly and Company, and Teva Pharmaceuticals.
In Phase IIb trials (studies conducted patients with migraine) data presented at the American Headache Society meeting by Teva reported for the first time that its drug, as a preventive treatment of high frequency episodic migraine, achieved a significant reduction in the number of headache hours after one week, with more than half of patients in each arm experiencing a 50% or greater reduction in headache frequency. Lilly presented, for the first time, Phase II data in episodic migraine that establishes the efficacy of their medicine against placebo with monthly administration across a range of doses. Amgen presented Phase II data for its anti-CGRP product that showed that the drug reduced the number of migraine days by 50% in about half the treated patients after 12 weeks. Alder Pharmaceutical, the fourth player in the CGRP race, is also developing an anti-CGRP drug with positive phase II data published, and did not present further data at the meeting.
"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," Dr. Goadsby said. "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."
INFORMATION:
ABOUT MIGRAINE
More than 36 million Americans suffer from migraine attacks, more than have asthma or diabetes combined. About four million have Chronic Migraine or experience more than 15 migraine days a month. High-Frequency Episodic Migraine is defined as 10-14 headache days per month, while episodic migraine (EM) is characterized by those with migraine who have 0 to 14 headache days per month. Migraine can be extremely disabling and costly, accounting for more than $20 billion in direct (e.g. doctor visits, medications) and indirect (e.g. missed work, lost productivity) expenses each year in the United States.
ABOUT THE AMERICAN HEADACHE SOCIETY
The American Headache Society (AHS) is a professional society of health care providers dedicated to the study and treatment of headache and face pain. The Society's objectives are to promote the exchange of information and ideas concerning the causes and treatments of headache and related painful disorders. Educating physicians, health professionals and the public and encouraging scientific research are the primary functions of this organization. AHS activities include an annual scientific meeting, a comprehensive headache symposium, regional symposia for neurologists and family practice physicians, and publication of the journal Headache. http://www.americanheadachesociety.org
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-06-17
So perhaps there is some truth in the old legends of the underworld reeking of brimstone (or sulphur, as it is now called)? New research confirms that the Earth's core does in fact contain vast amounts of sulphur, estimated to be up to 8.5 x 1018 tonnes. This is about 10 times the amount of sulphur in the rest of the Earth, based on the most recent estimates (and for comparison, around 10% of the total mass of the Moon). This is the first time that scientists have conclusive geochemical evidence for sulphur in the Earth's core, lending weight to the theory that the Moon ...
2015-06-16
During the coming monsoon season, survivors of the recent earthquake that destroyed parts of Nepal face a "very high" risk of a hepatitis E outbreak that could be especially deadly to pregnant women, according to a consensus statement from a group of infectious disease experts from around the world.
The document, published in the Lancet June 16 and signed by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Alain Labrique and six others, states that the conditions in the April tremor that killed 8,800 people and injured more than 23,000 have left conditions ripe for ...
2015-06-16
COLUMBUS, Ohio--Are black holes the ruthless killers we've made them out to be?
Samir Mathur says no.
According to the professor of physics at The Ohio State University, the recently proposed idea that black holes have "firewalls" that destroy all they touch has a loophole.
In a paper posted online to the arXiv preprint server [arXiv:1506.04342], Mathur takes issue with the firewall theory, and proves mathematically that black holes are not necessarily arbiters of doom.
In fact, he says the world could be captured by a black hole, and we wouldn't even notice.
More ...
2015-06-16
An independent panel convened by the National Institutes of Health concluded that ME/CFS is a complex, multifaceted disorder characterized by extreme fatigue and many other symptoms (including impairment of memory or concentration, post-exertional malaise, and pain) which can result in disability and the loss of employment and family support. Furthermore, limited knowledge, insufficient research funding, and a lack of diagnostic tools diminish a clinician's ability to provide optimal care. This leaves patients burdened with the difficult task of finding a health care provider ...
2015-06-16
Advances in acoustic and satellite technologies are allowing researchers to track animals large and small across great distances, even in challenging ocean environments, leading to significant new knowledge about the behavior, interactions, movements, and migrations of many species, from tiny fish to sea turtles and whales.
These developments in aquatic animal research are detailed in a paper, published June 12 in Science, by members of the International Scientific Advisory Committee of the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN), a research and development platform headquartered ...
2015-06-16
Alexandria, Va., USA - Today, the International and American Associations for Dental Research (IADR/AADR) published a study titled "Spectrum of Dental Phenotypes in Nonsyndromic Orofacial Clefting," which is the largest international cohort to date of children with nonsyndromic clefts, their relatives and controls. This study is published in the OnlineFirst portion of the Journal of Dental Research: the journal for dental, oral and craniofacial research and a companion podcast is also available for download. This paper is an Editor's Choice paper that provides limited 30 ...
2015-06-16
Irvine, Calif., June 16, 2015 - Two new studies led by UC Irvine using data from NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites show that civilization is rapidly draining some of its largest groundwater basins, yet there is little to no accurate data about how much water remains in them.
The result is that significant segments of Earth's population are consuming groundwater quickly without knowing when it might run out, the researchers conclude. The findings appear today in Water Resources Research.
"Available physical and chemical measurements are simply insufficient," ...
2015-06-16
In one of the first published studies using data from the Health eHeart Study, UCSF researchers have found that people are divided on the cardiovascular benefits of alcohol consumption. And, those who do perceive alcohol as "heart healthy" drink substantially more than their counterparts.
The study is in the Aug. 15 issue of American Journal of Cardiology.
"While we often hear about alcohol's effects, this is the first assessment to address how the public might use that information," said senior author Gregory Marcus, MD, MAS, director of clinical research in the UCSF ...
2015-06-16
Women under chronic stress have significantly lower levels of klotho, a hormone that regulates aging and enhances cognition, researchers at UC San Francisco have found in a study comparing mothers of children on the autism spectrum to low-stress controls.
The researchers found that the women in their study with clinically significant depressive symptoms had even lower levels of klotho in their blood than those who were under stress but not experiencing such symptoms.
The study, published Tuesday, June 16, in Translational Psychiatry, is the first to show a relationship ...
2015-06-16
DURHAM, N.C. - Patients older than age 45 with thyroid cancer that has spread to neck lymph nodes have long been considered at higher risk of dying, but the same has not been true for younger patients.
Now researchers at the Duke Cancer Institute and the Duke Clinical Research Institute have found that younger thyroid cancer patients with lymph node involvement are also at increased risk of dying, contrary to current beliefs and staging prognostic tools that classify young patients as having low-risk disease.
The finding, published this week in the Journal of Clinical ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Studies at American Headache Society Meeting show promise in new migraine prevention drugs
CGRP antagonists first mechanism-specific treatments developed to prevent migraine
