Presentation at International Headache Congress shows electroCore’s chronic cluster headache treatment to be cost-effective

May 19 2015

• electroCore's gammaCore non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation (nVNS) therapy improves quality of life when added to standard of care (SOC)
• gammaCore is cost-effective compared to other treatment options
• gammaCore reduces acute medication usage, resulting in a 30% decrease in cost.

A poster at the International Headache Society meeting in Valencia, Spain1 demonstrated that treatment with electroCore's nVNS treatment for chronic cluster headache, gammaCore, was both clinically and cost-effective when used with standard of care. Cluster headache is one of the worst pain conditions known to medical science and has few preventative treatment options, many of which have severe side effects.

The poster presentation was based on the successful PREVA2 study, which involved 97 patients at ten sites across Europe. The patients were randomised into two arms - one using the gammaCore device plus the standard of care, and the other the standard of care alone. Patients using gammaCore had a 45% reduction in the number of weekly cluster headache attacks compared with 13% (p=0.0025) in patients treated with the best available standard of care.

The poster shows a 30% reduction in costs associated with acute treatments such as zolmitriptan, sumatriptan and inhaled oxygen, a saving in medication usage of approximately €2,383 per patient per year.  Average total cost savings for nVNS treatment were €2,799 per patient per year (the per dose costs for the gammaCore device are now 28% lower as the company has launched a newer model containing a higher number of doses). This study did not look at the significant cost reduction potential associated resulting from fewer clinic visits by cluster headache patients.

The presentation also analysed the quality of life data using the EQ-5D™3- showing that standard of care plus gammaCore provided an average 16.5% improvement in patient's quality of life.

Peter May of OUCH4 (the UK patient group for cluster patients) said "This data is very important in establishing that, not only is gammaCore's nVNS treatment effective in preventing cluster attacks, but that it also reduces costs. We need this information so that we can encourage payors and doctors to use this new treatment particularly as our members have so few options and especially as gammaCore has no serious side effects."

1. 17th Congress of the International Headache Society, Valencia, Spain, 14th-17th May 2015
2. Prevention and Acute Treatment of Chronic Cluster Headache (PREVA); Authors: Charly Gaul, MD; Hans-Christoph Diener, MD, PhD; Kasja Solbach, MD; Andreas Straube, MD; Ozan Eren, MD; Uwe Reuter, MD, MBA; Stefan Evers, MD, PhD; Annelie Andersson; Eric J. Liebler
3. EQ-5D™ is a standardised instrument for use as a measure of health outcome.
4. Organization for Understanding Cluster Headaches (OUCH)