Migraine drug sales to grow to $5.8 billion in 2021 in major markets

Despite a decline in sales owing to the generic entry of most triptans, the launch of emerging acute treatments and the uptake of Allergan’s Botox for prevention of chronic migraine will drive the market for migraine therapies to increase from $3.3 billion in 2011 to $5.8 billion in 2021 in the leading markets of the USA, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and Japan, according to health care advisory firm Decision Resources.

The Pharmacor advisory service titled Migraine finds that increasing physician understanding of the indication and the launches of many generic triptans over the next several years will steadily increase diagnosis and drug-treatment rates, leading to sustained annual growth through 2021. Although migraine is a highly prevalent condition - affecting more than 75 million people across the seven major markets - a lack of importance attributed to headache and the availability of OTC analgesics lead to low diagnosis rates, and the high cost of some prescription therapies leads to low drug-treatment rates.

Prophylaxis greatest unmet need