Competition in US migraine prevention market

The migraine market has seen a game-change with the approvals and launches of a new and much-anticipated class of therapy, calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) inhibitors.

In the US migraine prevention market, Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN) and Novartis’ (NOVN: VX) Aimovig (erenumab-aooe) is benefiting from its first-to-market position in the anti-calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) class, which first saw the advent of competition following the September 2018 approvals of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (NYSE: TEVA)’s Ajovy (fremanezumab) and Eli Lilly’s (NYSE: LLY) Emgality (galcanezumab.

In the current wave of the ongoing quarterly RealTime Dynamix™: Migraine Prevention (US) report series from Spherix Global Insight, almost all US neurologists and migraine/headache specialists (n=104) surveyed in late November/early December 2018 reported having initiated at least one patient on Aimovig. In comparison, only about half of physicians had clinical experience with Ajovy or Emgality two months after their respective launches, with Ajovy slightly outpacing Emgality.