Trexima – new drug coming soon

There’s a new migraine drug that will probably appear on the market in the next few months, currently called Trexima.  In October, the FDA accepted the drug from GlaxoSmithKline and POZEN Inc. for review.

Strictly speaking, it’s not 100% new – it’s actually a combination of two drugs that are already on the market.  The first is sumatriptan succinate, commonly sold as Imitrex and Imigran.  This is of course one of the Triptan class of drugs, used for migraine and cluster.  Triptans bind certain serotonin receptors, and counteract inflammation.

The other is naproxen sodium, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), commonly sold as Aleve.  Naproxen sodium works well to reduce pain and inflammation.

So why would you care if you’ve seen these drugs before?  First, according to Dr Seymour Diamond (founder of the Diamond Headache Clinic), Trexima tends to work a little faster and also better than either drug alone.  It also uses RT Technology, a new method for getting the drug into your system quickly.  Robin Gaitens, a spokesperson for GlaxoSmithKline said that Trexima "demonstrated superiority over the individual components" and helped with common symptoms of migraine such as nausea and light/sound sensitivity.  Clinical trials demonstrated that at the two hour point Trexima was more effective that either of the other drugs it’s made up of.

Gaitens is optimistic about the drug because it attacks multiple mechanisms that are involved in a migraine attack.  There’s really nothing else quite like it currently available.

Watch for more drugs like this to start coming down the pipeline.  Sumatriptan is a logical place to start in a combination drug of this sort, but there are many other types of triptans now that may work better in the end.