Several researchers and companies have been trying to develop drugs that bind to the CGRP receptors to prevent the chemical from activating the pain network.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. is conducting several early stage studies on CGRP antagonists and other companies are testing or may begin development of similar compounds as well.
CGRP, which stands for calcitonin gene-related peptide neurotransmitter, has long been thought to play a role in migraines, but for much of that time for the wrong reason.
In the mid-1980s, Peter Goadsby, a neurologist and headache specialist at the University of California San Francisco, and his colleagues found that CGRP is released in migraines and that triptans decreased CGRP action.
Research into these biologic antibody-based approaches is at an earlier stage than the testing of antagonist drugs, but antibodies eventually might be able to block CGRP action regularly so that migraines don't ever begin.