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gap junction blocker

23 February 2008

Tonabersat – a new kind of migraine drug

James Discoveries & Stats, Medications, News 1

Back in early 2006 I wrote about a new class of migraine drugs that was in the testing phases. It’s called a gap junction blocker, and the drug being tested is called tonabersat. It’s time for an update!

A major phase of the clinical trials have been completed for tonabersat. The results were encouraging, and reason enough to continue to testing.

At the end of a three month treatment, patients had a 50% better improvement than those on a placebo. Patients also were able to significantly cut down on the amount of abortives that they were taking (ie painkillers). In the third month of the study, they took on average 60% less of these other medications.

This is really still in the early testing stages, meaning that there’s still a lot of work to be done to find the best dosages and so forth. So there’s reason to be optimistic that there will be more significant improvement in future trials.

The research is being continued at the Danish Headache Center under founder Dr. Jes Olesen. For more, visit the Minister Pharmaceuticals page on Tonabersat.

16 January 2006

A new style of migraine drug

James Discoveries & Stats, Medications 1

Testing is proceeding on a new migraine drug. I know, you hear that all the time – but this one is a little different. It’s a new type of drug, called a gap junction blocker. Gap junctions are important – everybody has them. They’re like little highways (or junctions) between your cells. Along those highways molecules can travel, allowing information to be passed on. Hormones, ions, neurotransmitters – these are all things that may travel the highway.

For example, a signal is passed along to the cells in your heart – "Ok everybody – contract!" and your heart muscle contracts, all of it at the same time.

Because we believe that incorrect messages are being passed along during a migraine attack, many migraine medications are focused around dealing with these signals.

On Friday, a company called Minster Pharmaceuticals announced that it was going to work together with the University of Copenhagen and Danish Headache Centre at Glostrup Hospital to evaluate the use of a new drug, a gap junction blocker, known as tonabersat. A phase II study will begin to see if tonabersat is a good preventative drug for migraine with aura.

This is no out-of-the-way study – it will be led by world renown neurologist Professor Jes Olesen, former president of the International Headache Society. He believes that this drug may be a unique migraine preventative that can be well tolerated by patients. The Minster website says that it could turn out that "gap junction blockers would represent the first major advance in treatment of migraine since the introduction of Imigran in the early 1990s."

It will be interesting to see how the research progresses in the months ahead. It may or may not be a major breakthrough, but it’s one to keep your eye on.

Read Minster Pharmaceutical’s page about tonabersat, the definition of Gap Junctions, and an October overview of tonabersat news at The Daily Headache.