Fremanezumab treatment reduces headache severity and durations for patients with chronic migraine or episodic migraine who had insufficient responses to prior preventive medications, according to new findings presented at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting.

Fremanezumab is a fully humanized monoclonal antibody that targets calcitonin gene-related peptide with a proven efficacy for preventive treatment of migraine in adults.

In the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3b FOCUS study, researchers evaluated the early effects of fremanezumab treatment on headache severity and duration on chronic or episodic migraine patients.

Patients were randomized to be treated with quarterly doses of fremanezumab, monthly doses of fremanezumab, or matched placebo for 12 weeks.

Data were evaluated for 837 enrolled patients who had experienced an inadequate response to 2-4 prior migraine preventive medication classes.

Patients were evaluated for changes from baseline at four weeks for average headache severity, monthly average headache hours of any severity and at least moderate severity, and average headache hours per headache day of any severity.

Reductions in headache severity at 4 weeks were higher in patients receiving monthly or quarterly fremanezumab dosing when compared with placebo. Patients in the quarterly and monthly fremanezumab arms experienced reductions in monthly average number of headache hours from baseline as well as monthly headache hours of at least moderate severity versus placebo. The average number of headache hours per headache day of any severity were also reduced at 4 week in the quarterly and monthly fremanezumab arms versus placebo.

“After 4 weeks of treatment, quarterly and monthly fremanezumab treatment reduced both headache severity and duration in patients with CM or EM and inadequate response to 2-4 prior migraine preventive medication classes,” Dr Ashina et al concluded.

—Erin McGuinness

Ashina Messoud, Cohen Joshua M, Gandhi Sanjay, Barash Steve, et al. Early Reductions in Headache Severity and Duration With Fremanezumab Treatment in the Randomized, Double-blind Phase 3b FOCUS study. Presented at: American Academy of Neurology 2021Annual Meeting; April 17-22, 2021; virtual.