Strong sales forecast for first treatment likely to come to the market for preventing migraines

US biotech major Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN) has published the results from its Phase III trial STRIVE, which evaluated the efficacy of the drug erenumab - in the treatment of episodic migraine and delivered significant differences versus the placebo in all endpoints, says data and analytics company GlobalData.

Under the proposed trade name Aimovig, the drug was accepted for review by the US Food and Drug Administration in July this year, with a Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) target action date of May 17, 2018 and, if approved, Aimovig will be jointly commercialized in the USA by Amgen and Swiss pharma giant Novartis (NOVN: VX).

In an earlier report on the therapeutic category, GlobalData projected that sales of migraine products are expected to grow to $8.7 billion by 2026, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.3% across the seven major markets (5EU (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK), and Japan; 7MM).