Almotriptan
Almirall's Migraine Drug Almotriptan Launched in UK
LONDON (Reuters Health) Feb 22 - Spanish pharmaceutical firm Almirall
Prodesfarmma's migraine drug almotriptan (Almogran) was launched on
Wednesday in the UK and Northern Europe, according to the company.
The new triptan, the fifth drug in this class to reach market, has been
priced at 3.25 pounds sterling per dose, compared with 4 pounds to 8
pounds per dose for current triptans.
Migraine specialists believe this will offer substantial health service
cost savings. "In the UK, in 1999, 7.7 million oral doses of triptans
were prescribed at a cost of 42.2 million pounds," said Dr. Giles
Elrington, a consultant neurologist at St. Bart's and the London NHS
Trust. "The same number of doses of almotriptan would cost 17.2 million
pounds, a 40% cost saving."
According to Ann Turner, director of the UK Migraine Action
Association, a patient advocacy group, there is substantial scope for
expansion in triptan use. "Despite this class of drugs being available
for a decade, three out of four migraine patients have never tried a
triptan," she said.
Almotriptan was simultaneously introduced in Denmark, Finland, Norway,
Sweden and Iceland, where the drug is marketed by Lundbeck Ltd. In the
rest of the world, including the US — where Almogran awaits approval
from the US Food and Drug Administration — it will be marketed by
Pharmacia & Upjohn.
Almotriptan May Have Fewer Side Effects Than Sumatriptan
WESTPORT, CT (Reuters Health) Dec 07 - Almotriptan has good
anti-migraine activity and may be better tolerated than sumatriptan,
Spanish researchers report. Almotriptan received US FDA approval in May
of this year.
Dr. Jordi Gras of Almirall Prodesfarma, Research Centre in Barcelona
and colleagues compared the vascular effects of sumatriptan with that
of almotriptan in isolated human blood vessels. "This paper is the
first to report in detail the effects of almotriptan, a selective and
potent 5-HT1B/1D agonist, in preparations of isolated human blood
vessels," they note in the current issue of Cephalalgia, dated October.
Almotriptan showed "selectivity of action" for the migraine-related
meningeal arteries, according to the team. Moreover, "almotriptan
proved to have a statistically significant, seven-fold greater potency
and a greater effectiveness in contracting this vessel in comparison
with sumatriptan," they report.
The two triptans had similar effects in non-migraine related cranial
and extracranial vessels, the team reports. However, almotriptan had
lower vasoconstrictive effects on isolated human coronary vessels,
which have "putatively been linked to some adverse events in
association with sumatriptan," Dr. Gras and colleagues report.
Based on this study, "one can presume that almotriptan, at the
therapeutic oral dose, should be more active than sumatriptan and
should possess a profile of adverse events clearly lower than
sumatriptan," Dr. Gras noted in comments to Reuters Health.
"This assumption has been reinforced by the results of a triptan
meta-analysis recently published [Lancet 2001,358:1668-1675], which
confirms the superiority of almotriptan compared to sumatriptan in
terms of efficacy [sustained pain-free and consistency] variables as
well as tolerability," he added.
