Hi all,

I'm wondering whether anyone on the CH board has any knowledge of, or experience with Signifor - a relatively new medicine made by Novartis?

Kind regards
Paul

Did a board search and yours is the first post here on it. Did a web search, and saw it's primariy use is for Cushings. Started trying to read the info on it but it's a whisker over my head!

Joe

Google now has this topic as the first results when searching for "signifor cluster headache".

From what I've read I'm confused as to why it could help with CH. Can you tell us more about what your neuro said about using it to treat CH?

A Google Search for European Patent  EP1941902A1 gives a document which describes a medicine called pasireotide, which is marketed as Signifor® by Novartis.

Unfortunately, the document is highly technical, but phrases such as:
[0014]
Two small randomized, double-blind trials suggested efficacy of somatostatin in cluster headache. The problem with studying native somatostatin as a potential abortive agent for CH is that its short half-life of several minutes necessitates an intravenous infusion.

[0015]
Octreotide, a octapeptide somatostatin analog with a longer half-life of approximately 1.5 hours, can be given subcutaneously, and has been studied as an abortive agent for the acute treatment of CH (M. S. Matharu et al., Ann Neurol. 2004; 56; 488-494

[0020]
In addition, pasireotide is a smaller molecule than octreotide (consisting of 8 vs. 6 amino acids) and is less lipophilic than octreotide (partition coefficient log p = 2.7 vs. 5.5). Both factors contribute to a better cell permeability of pasireotide which thus could reach pain sensitive structures within the central nervous system by crossing the blood brain barrier more easily than octreotide.

got me all excited.

The patent is from 2008, and they're marketing the drug for Cushing's Disease.
So, I've written to Novartis to see what's going on.
Was hoping that someone on the message board would have some experience with it (from CH perspective) to help put their eventual answer in perspective.

Kind regards
Paul V

Hi, a quick PS.
I've just noticed that my previous message included a (R) symbol, and the name of a major pharmaceutical company. I hope this doesn't make me look like a drug pimp! I even managed to slip the name into the last message twice. So, for the record: NovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartisNovartis, etc

You didn't come across as a pimp! ;D Does look like there's potential there....

Joe