Treatment With Galcanezumab Decreases Disability From Migraine
Post hoc data analysis shows that treatment with galcanezumab (Emgality; Eli Lilly, Indianapolis, IN) not only reduces monthly migraine days, but also improves daily functioning and reduces disability for individuals with migraine. The data come from the EVOLVE-1, EVOLVE-2, and REGAIN studies (NCT02614183, NCT02614196, and NCT02614261) and were presented at the American Headache Society’s 61st annual meeting in Philadelphia, July 11-13, 2019.
Of people treated with galcanezumab for chronic migraine in the REGAIN study, a statistically significant increase in the proportion of patients with little-to-no disability after 3 months compared with placebo (20.3% vs 13.9%), regardless of baseline disability.
Of people treated with galcanezumab for episodic migraine in the EVOLVE-1 and EVOLVE-2 trials who had moderate-to-very-severe disability, 44% shifted to little-to-no disability after 6 months of treatment compared with 26.5% of those given placebo. This difference was also statistically significant.
Galcanezumab treatment correlated with improvements in all 7 items of the Migraine-Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire Role Function-Restrictive Domain (MSQ-RFR), which measures how much a migraine limits a person's daily social and work-related activities. Questions on the MSQ-RFR include feeling more energetic, feeling less tired for work or daily activities, concentrating better on work/daily activities, being able to get more done at work and home, having less difficulty performing work/daily activities, and less interference in leisure activities and dealing with family and friends.
"Migraine is the second leading cause of disability in the US and can severely impact people's lives," said Gudarz Davar, MD, vice president, Neurology Development, Lilly Bio-Medicines."Emgality gives people a chance to reduce their monthly migraine headache days. Given the diverse disability and restrictions imposed by migraine, it is important to understand whether treatments like Emgality can lead to improvements in people's migraine-related disability and restrictions imposed on their daily activities, relationships, productivity and free-time."