Could a new treatment against migraine stop them in their tracks?

Some industry estimates suggest that migraine could be the third most prevalent disease in the world. Unfortunately, despite their frequency, migraine seems to affect women disproportionately, up to three times more often than men. The data suggest that about 18% of women in the United States suffer from often debilitating headaches called migraines, while they seem to only affect 6% of men.

And despite what appears to be a less than impressive cohort, the number of people who suffer from this condition – again, very debilitating – is enough to announce the need for new effective migraine treatments. Fortunately, a new drug could be on the way.

Although it has not yet been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, the new drug belongs to a clbad of drugs recently on the market. These drugs are called CGRP inhibitors; and the drug is called rimegepant.

Research shows that CGRP is only a small protein but is released by the trigeminal nerve during a migraine attack. Obviously, this is a good reason why it is thought to contribute to generating migraine symptoms.

At present, the medical industry has already approved three CGRP inhibitors. All of these FDA-approved interventions are injectable drugs, usually used to prevent migraine attacks regularly.

Rimegepant is different, however, in that it is an oral medication that can help relieve migraines after a strike. This, of course, is very different from the previous three interventions.

However, lead researcher Dr. Richard Lipton said his team found that out of about 1,200 migraine patients involved in the study, the drug had definitely outperformed an inactive placebo. In fact, almost 20% of patients taking a single dose of rhymepant did not suffer in less than two hours. This was only about 12% in the control group.

According to the American Migraine Foundation, more than 37 million people have migraine headaches in the United States. This type of very specific headache causes severe pain, often accompanied by other severe symptoms that may cause sensitivity to light and sound, and may be accompanied by nausea and blurred vision. The pain is also very different from other headaches, centralized at the forehead and around the outside, in many cases.

The results of this study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.