NICE recommends Lilly’s migraine med Emgality

The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended Eli Lilly’s Emgality as a preventative treatment for migraine in adults with episodic and chronic migraine.

Emgality (galcanezumab) is a once-monthly subcutaneous injection – it binds to the calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), which is believed to play a role in migraine attacks.

The NICE recommendation is based on results from a number of clinical trials which investigated Emgality’s efficacy and safety, including the CONQUER, REGAIN, EVOLVE-1 and EVOLVE-2 trials.

The EVOLVE-1 and EVOLVE-2 trials, which involved over 1,700 patients who had migraines between four and 14 days a month, demonstrated that those who received Emgality had four or five fewer days with migraines per month.

In the REGAIN study, which evaluated the treatment in patients who had at least 15 headaches a month for at least three months – eight or more of which were migraine headache days – those treated with Emgality had on average five fewer days with migraines per month.

Finally, in the CONQUER study, Emgality reduced monthly migraine headache days by 4.1 days in adults with migraine who had previously tried three or more preventative measures.

“Migraine is a complex neurological disease which can have a negative impact on all aspects of life, including family, work and social relationships. Lilly welcomes this decision which offers a valuable new treatment option for patients living with this debilitating condition.” said Jyun Yan Yang, senior medical director, Eli Lilly and Company, UK, and Northern Europe.

“Galcanezumab is one of an innovative class of drugs called CGRP antagonists which have been developed specifically for the prevention of migraine and we are pleased to see the results of many years of scientific effort,” he added.