Amgen and Novartis kicked off the new CGRP class of migraine prevention drugs with their 2018 approval for Aimovig, and their market-leading position is not one they want to cede. To back up their drug’s benefit in the face of competition, the companies have released several sets of real-world and long-term data demonstrating how the drug has helped patients.
In a real-world study in Germany of 109 patients, 80% of those taking Aimovig experienced a reduction of migraine intensity, Novartis said. Almost all—92%—had fewer attacks.
Another real-world study tracked experiences of 19,740 migraine patients, including 91 on Aimovig, who’ve been suffering from migraines for 18 years on average. Eighty-five percent of patients who were taking Aimovig coped better with their daily routines than they did without the drug. And 83% had lost fewer days to migraines since starting on the CGRP inhibitor.
As for long-term data, after tracking patients for 4.5 years in an open-label study, researchers found that Aimovig provided patients with “sustained reductions” in monthly migraine days over the course of treatment.
The data—originally scheduled to be presented at the American Academy of Neurology meeting in Toronto later this month—were published in the journal Neurology after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the meeting’s cancellation.
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Novartis is touting the data as the company and its partner Amgen seek to hold the lead in the CGRP migraine prevention field. After their first-in-class approval for Aimovig, Teva’s Ajovy and Eli Lilly’s Emgality each scored subsequent FDA nods. Now, Lundbeck is also marketing an IV migraine prevention therapy in Vyepti.
Emgality has been charging for Aimovig’s lead, but the Novartis and Amgen drug has bested its rivals in sales and market share. As of March, Aimovig held a 49.2% share of the migraine prevention market, compared with 37.9% for Emgality and 12.8% for Ajovy, RBC Capital Markets analyst Brian Abrahams wrote in a note to clients.
As for sales, Aimovig generated $306 million in 2019, compared with $162 million for Emgality and $96 million for Ajovy.
Eli Lilly has also started a real-world study to learn more about how patients end up on Emgality.