Migraines are sometimes unbearable, the more so they appear in crucial moments when we must keep our full focus and work on that extensive project that, as it appears, gives us headaches. Almost 30 million Americans suffer from migraine attacks so bad that they can hardly perform daily tasks. The condition is very hard to bear and sometimes it takes long hours before the pain leaves us.
Scientists just came from revealing a revolutionary range of drugs working efficiently for migraine prevention. It is well known that prevention always works better than treatment, so migraine sufferers, this is how the story goes.
The new class of drugs works with neurotransmitters that can prevent the pain from appearing. Tests already proved how this special type of medicine can help large numbers of sufferers. The new treatment aims at a compound known as calcitocin gene related peptide, or in short CGRP. Four companies have already embarked on testing the drug that affects this CGRP compound in our brains. The giant Teva Pharmaceuticals, Eli Lilly and Company, Amgen and Alder Pharmaceuticals are running extensive tests on the drug before releasing it on the free markets.
CGRP is a neurotransmitter, a message carrying chemical and whenever migraines appear, this compound is messed up and plays with biological processes in our brain.
The drugs interfere with the cause of our pain, namely CGRP. Some of the compounds are monoclonal antibodies, namely laboratory engineered immune system proteins designed to attack a certain target – CGRP. Usually, these antibodies need to be injected or infused, for high efficiency. Also, they come with great costs, as the monoclonals used in cancer treatments cost no less than $10.000 a month.
The goal of the companies testing the new drug is daring to say the least. It is pretty delicate to prevent the installation of an ache that doesn’t have a routine in appearing, it does so depending on a lot of variables and inter-changeable factors. Companies have already made a goal to cut the number of migraines in half. Some of the drugs consisting of monoclonals have succeded with that but the tests are still ongoing.
Until further news, we dare say that the new drug, whenever it will be ready, will be a great boom both for the pharma industries and for us, all people worldwide that have experienced a migraine at least once in our lifetime. Migraines are common affections and the new drug could represent rivers of profit for the companies that invest in its development, as the reach will be huge.
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