Glaxo Close To French Imigran Deal?

Glaxo looks closer to securing a pricing agreement with the French government for its antimigraine drug Imigran (sumatriptan). An agreement between the company and the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs may allow physicians to prescribe the drug and some patients to be partly reimbursed for it through social security.

The drug gained medical approval for marketing in March 1993, but Glaxo still required the approval of the price control commission to secure reimbursement. The fledgling agreement is that reimbursement will be limited to the injectable form of the drug, which should only be prescribed for one of its indications, ie cluster headache. As a consequence, oral sumatriptan could be prescribed for the other forms of migraine, but patients will not be able to get reimbursement for it.

A protocol to monitor the first 10,000 prescriptions of sumatriptan has also been drawn up, in order to ensure that there would not be a trend towards prescribing the injectable drug for other forms of migraine.