Zavegepant Receives Authorization to Proceed, Achieves First In Human Dosing

Biohaven Pharmaceutical reported the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized the initiation of clinical trials for oral zavegepant (formerly BHV-3500) and the company has achieved first in human dosing in a Phase 1 trial designed to assess the safety and pharmacokinetics of oral formulations of zavegepant.

Biohaven recently announced securing up to $250 million in funding to advance the company's CGRP receptor antagonist program through the development of zavegepant. The zavegepant program encompasses intranasal zavegepant as well as oral formulations of zavegepant for migraine and non-migraine indications. Intranasal zavegepant previously demonstrated superior efficacy to placebo in a Phase 2/3 study for the acute treatment of migraine and the investigational agent is also being studied in an ongoing double blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial in COVID-19 infected hospitalized patients requiring supplemental oxygen.

"We are excited to advance the oral formulations of zavegepant into human studies and broaden our CGRP franchise into migraine adjacencies, non-migraine indications and new formulations across the globe. Our team has developed a deep knowledge of the receptor kinetics and pharmacology of the CGRP pathways, and our intention is to expand our CGRP targeting agents across a number of neuroimmune disorders," Vlad Coric, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Biohaven said.

"Zavegepant has unique chemical properties and is a structurally distinct CGRP receptor antagonist that allows for administration in a variety of formulations. Zavegepant provides an opportunity to expand our CGRP program with customization of our products to different disease states based on the distinct attributes of each agent and formulation," Charles Conway, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer said.

Zavegepant is a third generation, high affinity, selective and structurally unique, small molecule CGRP receptor antagonist from Biohaven's NOJECTION™ Migraine Platform and the only CGRP receptor antagonist in clinical development with both intranasal and oral formulations. The efficacy and safety profile of intranasal zavegepant for the acute treatment of migraine, as compared to placebo, was shown in a randomized controlled Phase 2/3 dose-ranging trial with a total of over 1000 patients who received zavegepant. In this study, zavegepant showed statistical superiority to placebo on the coprimary endpoints of 2 hour freedom from pain and freedom from a patients' most bothersome symptom (either nausea, photophobia or phonophobia). Following successful end of Phase 2 interactions with FDA (clinical and nonclinical), zavegepant is advancing to Phase 3 for the acute treatment of migraine in adults.