NeurAxon’s NXN-188 compound effective for acute migraine treatment

Nov 1 2010

NeurAxon, Inc., announced today Phase 2 clinical study results for NXN-188, a novel, first-in-class treatment with the potential to raise the current standard of care in acute migraine. NXN-188 is a dual action new chemical entity which incorporates a novel mechanism, selective inhibition of neuronal Nitric Oxide Synthase (nNOS), as well as 5-HT_1B/1D activation - the mechanism of triptans, the largest class of migraine drugs. NXN-188 was designed to provide a rapid, robust and sustained therapeutic effect.

“NXN-188 shows benefits across multiple measures and multiple time points as early as 30 minutes after dosing, and we believe that it has the potential to make a meaningful difference in patients' lives.”

The primary endpoint in this study was Pain Relief at 2 hours: although NXN-188 did not reach significance at this time point>

NXN-188 demonstrated efficacy compared to placebo on the additional key measures of Pain Freedom, Sustained Pain Freedom, and Use of Rescue Medication. Rescue medication is frequently required with current migraine treatments, but in this study the use of rescue medication following NXN-188 was nearly half that for placebo>

Professor Peter Goadsby, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the UCSF Headache Center commented, "NXN-188 represents a truly innovative approach to medicine design by incorporating two mechanisms of action against two specific targets in migraine in one treatment. It is an exciting development that doctors and patients can look forward to hearing more about soon."

"Migraine is a debilitating illness that severely impacts patients' lives, and current therapies often fall short of expectations, providing either inadequate or temporary relief from migraine symptoms. We set very high hurdles for NXN-188 in Study 204, exploring not only the standard measures, but several newer and more challenging endpoints. In this study we evaluated Total Migraine Freedom, the complete absence of all pain, nausea, and sensitivity to light and sound, and found that a significant proportion of patients receiving NXN-188 reported that all of their migraine symptoms had abated," said NeurAxon Chief Medical Officer, Robert Medve, M.D. "NXN-188 shows benefits across multiple measures and multiple time points as early as 30 minutes after dosing, and we believe that it has the potential to make a meaningful difference in patients' lives."