CoLucid Pharmaceuticals : Cambridge drugmaker’s stock price finds relief after migraine drug passes major trial

A Cambridge company developing a new kind of pill to treat migraines today reported results from a 2,231 patient trial showing the drug helps twice as many patients to be headache-free after two hours than a placebo.

Shares of CoLucid Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: CLCD) were up 69 percent to an all-time high Tuesday morning after announcing the results of the first of two randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials it hopes will form the basis of an application for U.S. approval for the drug, which goes by the generic name of lasmiditan. The company touts the drug as the first treatment for migraines that doesn't aim to restrict blood vessels like the only other migraine treatments now available in the U.S., known as triptans.

Rather, lasmiditan targets something called the 5‑HT1F receptors, which has been hypothesized as a way to block the pain of the condition. One key goal of the new drug is to avoid the cardiovascular problems that can sometimes arise from triptans.

In the trial, 32.2 percent of patients who were given a 200 milligram dose of lasmiditan reported they were headache-free after two hours, compared to 15.3 percent who took the placebo. Additionally, 40.7 percent of those patients said they no longer felt the associated symptom of their migraine that they found most bothersome, which could be nausea, fear of loud noises or fear of light. Only 29.5 percent of the patients on placebo said they were free of such symptoms after two hours.

As for side effects, the study found no statistically-significant increase in cardiovascular events in patients taking lasmiditan versus those who took the placebo. That's despite the fact that 82 percent of patients in the trial had multiple cardiovascular risk factors, such as obesity or hypertension, or else had existing cardiovascular conditions.

The company went public in May 2015 with a $50 million initial public offering, and it's shares fell along with those of most other biotech firms over the following year. Today's news catapulted its share price to $18, however, giving the company a market cap of $297 million as of 10:30 a.m.

Don Seiffert writes about the life sciences industry, including biotech, the drug industry, medical devices and diagnostics.