Jessica Ailani, MD: Long-Term Safety and Efficacy of Ubrogepant in Acute Migraine

With the recent approval of a number of highly effective preventive medications for patients with migraine, whether chronic or episodic, the ability of physicians to treat these individuals has become much easier. However, many challenges persist, and a number of treatments are still sorely needed.

One of the topics of conversation at the 2019 American Headache Society Annual Meeting, July 11-14, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was a major area of unmet need in headache medicine: acute migraine treatments. Although new preventives can greatly reduce the number of migraines patients have, they still have a need for acute therapies for the attacks that they do. Data have shown that many patients fail these acute therapies or experience adverse effects, and perhaps even more fail to remain adherent.

Jessica Ailani, MD, director, MedStar Georgetown Headache Center, and associate professor, neurology, MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, is one of the migraine specialists involved in clinical trials of several potential new agents for this purpose. One of these, ubrogepant, has shown particularly exciting data in this area, and in March, a new drug application for the oral calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor antagonist was accepted for review by the FDA.

To find out more about ubrogepant’s long-term safety and efficacy, NeurologyLive sat with Ailani at the AHS meeting to discuss some of the study data that she and her colleagues presented at the meeting.