A Christchurch businessman believes he has found the secret to making migraines less frequent and less painful.
Larry Stenswick is wondering whether he has stumbled by accident onto an important migraine medicine. He had been using pine bark extracts in supplements he produces when a friend reported a reduction in migraines as a side effect.
Stenswick says a leading neurologist in California has trialled the product and the results have been published in an international journal. He says they are very positive.
Businessman Bill Verstappen first noticed the effect on his headaches and he is in no doubt the extract has helped. "For me it's had a significant and major impact in terms of quality of life after migraine events, and the number of them."
Migraine researchers at Australia's Griffiths University in Queensland are interested and will start clinical trials within the year.
If the Australian trials are successful and the extract is approved as a pharmaceutical the potential is significant. Stenswick says getting even a 5% share of the potential sufferers in the United States could result in earnings of $50-70 million a year.
But even if Stenswick is successful in developing the extract as a pharmaceutical it would be at least five years before doctors could prescribe it.
