Lasmiditan

Key takeaways

Lasmiditan belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Lasmiditan to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Lasmiditan from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Lasmiditan, sold under the brand name Reyvow, is a medication used to treat migraines. It is not useful for prevention. The drug is taken by mouth. Common side effects include sleepiness, dizziness, tiredness, and numbness. Lasmiditan was approved in the United States in October 2019 and became available in February 2020. It was developed by Eli Lilly. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers it to be a first-in-class medication. Lasmiditan is a Schedule V controlled substance in the United States. In August 2026, the FDA withdrew approval of Reyvow at the request of Eli Lilly after the company notified the agency that the drug was no longer marketed.

Medical uses Lasmiditan is used for the acute (active but short-term) treatment of migraine with or without aura (a sensory phenomenon or visual disturbance) in adults. It is not indicated for migraine prevention.

Adverse effects There is a risk of driving impairment while taking lasmiditan. People are advised not to drive or operate machinery for at least eight hours after taking lasmiditan, even if they feel well enough to do so. People who cannot follow this advice are advised not to take lasmiditan. The drug causes central nervous system (CNS) depression, including dizziness and sedation. It should be used with caution if taken in combination with alcohol or other CNS depressants.

Pharmacology

Mechanism of action

Lasmiditan is a serotonin receptor agonist that, like the unsuccessful LY-334,370, selectively binds to the 5-HT1F receptor subtype. A number of triptans have been shown to act on this subtype as well, but only after their affinity for 5-HT1B and 5-HT1D has been made responsible for their anti-migraine activity. The lack of affinity for these receptors might result in fewer side effects related to vasoconstriction compared to triptans in susceptible people, such as those with ischemic heart disease, Raynaud's phenomenon or after a myocardial infarction, although a 1998 review has found such side-effects to rarely occur in people taking triptans. The broad receptor interactions of lasmiditan have been studied.

History Lasmiditan was discovered by Eli Lilly and Company and was then relicensed to CoLucid Pharmaceuticals in 2006, until CoLucid was bought by Eli Lilly in 2017, to allow Eli Lilly to reacquire the drug's intellectual property. The drug is protected by patents until 2031. Phase II clinical trials for dose finding purposes were completed in 2007, for an intravenous form and in early 2010, for an oral form. Eli Lilly submitted a new drug application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in November 2018. Three phase III clinical trials were completed. The SPARTAN trial compared placebo with 50, 100, and 200 mg of lasmiditan. SAMURAI compared placebo with 100 and 200 mg doses of lasmiditan. GLADIATOR is an open-label study that compared 100 and 200 mg doses of lasmiditan in subjects that received the drug as part of a prior trial. Topline results from the SPARTAN trial showed that the drug induced met its primary and secondary endpoints in the trial. The primary result showed a statistically significant improvement in pain relief relative to placebo 2 hours after the first dose. The secondary result showed a statistically significantly greater percentage of subjects were free of their most bothersome symptom (MBS) compared with placebo at two hours following the first dose. The FDA approved lasmiditan primarily based on data from two clinical trials, Trial 1 (# NCT02439320) and Trial 2 (#NCT02605174) of 4439 subjects with migraine headaches with or without aura. Trials were conducted at 224 sites in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. The FDA approved the drug in October 2019. It was placed into Schedule V in January 2020.

Society and culture

Regulatory approval On 23 June 2022, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) adopted a positive opinion, recommending the granting of a marketing authorization for the medicinal product Rayvow, intended for the treatment of migraine. The applicant for this medicinal product is Eli Lilly Nederland B.V. Rayvow was approved for medical use in the European Union in August 2022. Lasmiditan has not been approved for use in Canada. The drug sponsor in Canada, Eli Lilly Canada Inc., filed a New Drug Submission in February 2020 but cancelled the submission before a final decision was issued by Health Canada. Health Canada had completed their review of the submission and did not find any deficiencies in the data packages provided in the submission. However, Health Canada and Eli Lilly could not come to agreement on the interpretation of the cardiovascular data and how it would be worded in the product monograph. The drug sponsor cancelled their submission on 26 January 2021 before Health Canada issued a final decision.

Legal status

United States Lasmiditan is a Schedule V controlled substance in the United States. This was based on lasmiditan producing reinforcing effects in a self-administration assay in rodents and increasing drug-liking scores more than placebo but less than the benzodiazepine alprazolam as well as producing euphoric mood in humans. Other effects in humans included somnolence and feeling drunk. Misuse-related adverse effects occurred at a low but significant frequency (~1%) in clinical trials.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lasmiditan

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lasmiditan claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Lasmiditan before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Lasmiditan ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Lasmiditan

In research: Lasmiditan appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Lasmiditan in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Lasmiditan is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 5-HT1F agonists, Benzamides, Disubstituted pyridines, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lasmiditan outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Lasmiditan in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lasmiditan means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Lasmiditan out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lasmiditan in simple terms?

Lasmiditan, sold under the brand name Reyvow, is a medication used to treat migraines. It is not useful for prevention.

Why does Lasmiditan matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Lasmiditan?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Lasmiditan.