4.5-year data confirms long-term efficacy of Novartis' Aimovig in episodic migraine

Novartis has lifted the curtain on interim data from the 4.5-year mark of a five-year open-label treatment period (OLTP) investigating the sustained efficacy of Aimovig (erenumab) in the treatment of episodic migraine.

At the beginning of the OLTP, all patients began treatment with 70mg Aimovig, and this was increased to 140mg in the 250 patients that continued treatment for more than approximately two years. Of these 250 patients, 221 (88%) continued receiving treatment for the duration of the OLTP or remained on 140mg after 4.5 years.

The results showed that monthly migraine days were reduced by 5.8 days from a baseline of 8.7 days, while acute migraine-specific medication treatment days were also reduced by 4.6 from a baseline of 6.1. No new safety signals were encountered during the study.

At the 4.5 year mark, 77% of patients continuing treatment saw their monthly migraine days fall by at least 50%, while 56% of patients saw a fall of at least 75% and a third of patients achieved a reduction of 100%.  

“We are pleased to see that during the OLTP, Aimovig was not only able to reduce monthly migraine days, but also decrease the number of days requiring acute migraine-specific medication” said Estelle Vester-Blokland, Global Head Neuroscience Medical Affairs at Novartis. “These 4.5-year data further add to Aimovig’s established benefit for people living with migraine. Novartis is committed to reimagining migraine care, by providing patients with an effective preventive treatment option so that they may take their lives back from this highly debilitating disease.”

Novartis confirmed it is pursuing commercialisation of the drug in partnership with Amgen in the US, and the latter also holds exclusive marketing rights in Japan. Novartis itself retains exclusive rights to the drug outside of these two regions. According to the manufacturer, Aimovig is the world’s most prescribed anti-calcitonin gene related peptide (CGRP) drug with over 250,000 prescriptions since launch.

Matt Fellows