New Media Department             Yu Jie, Duan Yuqing              March 13, 2023

On March 10, Pfizer announced that the FDA has approved its drug Zavzpret (zavegepant) for the treatment of migraine in adults. Pfizer said it expects to launch the drug in July this year.

On May 10, 2022, Pfizer acquired Biohaven for approximately $11.6 billion. Pfizer obtained Biohaven's blockbuster migraine (CGRP) marketed drug and pipeline, including Nurtec ODT and Zavzpret.

Zavzpret is now the world's first calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor antagonist nasal spray for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults.

According to the statistics of the World Health Organization, there are about 1.3 billion migraine sufferers in the world, and the number of female patients is three times that of males. China is the country with the largest number of migraine patients, with a prevalence rate of 9.3%, about 130 million patients, and a female-to-male ratio of about 2:1.

According to statistics, the global migraine drug market size in 2020 is 6 billion US dollars, and it is estimated that the global drug market size in this field may exceed 11 billion US dollars in 2024.

The migraine nasal spray approved by Pfizer broke the traditional form of oral administration. Its phase III clinical trial showed that: after 2 hours of treatment, the proportion of patients who achieved pain relief in the zavegepant group and the placebo group were 24% vs 15% (p< 0.0001); at 15 minutes of treatment, the zavegepant group showed greater pain relief than the placebo group. Zavegepant was safe and well tolerated, and the most common adverse event was dysgeusia. It can be seen that the effect of zavegepant can be exerted after 15 minutes of use.

As far as migraine is concerned, there is still a huge unmet clinical need in China. With more and more preventive and therapeutic migraine drugs approved, migraine sufferers have more treatment options.