What is Aimovig?
Aimovig is a brand-name prescription medication that’s used to prevent migraine headaches in adults. It comes in a prefilled autoinjector pen. You use the autoinjector to give yourself an injection at home once per month. Aimovig can be prescribed in one of two doses: 70 mg per month or 140 mg per month.
Aimovig contains the drug erenumab. Erenumab is a monoclonal antibody, which is a type of drug developed in a lab. Monoclonal antibodies are drugs made from immune system cells. They work by blocking the activity of certain proteins in your body.
Aimovig can be used to prevent both episodic migraine and chronic migraine headaches. The American Headache Society recommends Aimovig for people who:
- can’t reduce their number of monthly migraine headaches enough with other drugs
- can’t take other migraine medications because of side effects or drug interactions
Aimovig has been shown to be effective in clinical studies. For people with episodic migraine, between 40 percent and 50 percent of those who took Aimovig for six months cut their number of migraine days by at least half. And for people with chronic migraine, about 40 percent of those who took Aimovig cut their number of migraine days by half or more.
A new kind of drug
Aimovig is part of a new class of medications called calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) antagonists. This type of drug was developed for the prevention of migraine headaches.
Aimovig received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in May 2018. It was the first medication to be approved in the CGRP antagonist class of drugs.
Two other drugs in this class of medications were approved after Aimovig: Emgality (galcanezumab) and Ajovy (fremanezumab). A fourth medication, called eptinezumab, is currently being studied in clinical trials.
