New drugs are promising for difficult-to-manage asthma

As the results of clinical trials show, injectables appear to be more versatile than existing drugs in the treatment of people with asthma who have various forms of severe and difficult to control.

There are different types asthma Brought by many different triggers, many monoclonal antibody drugs called “biopharmacy” are designed to target different asthma triggers.

This new medicine, Tezepermab is yet another monoclonal antibody, Inflammatory protein Dr. Andrew Meng’s Go, a researcher head of the lung department at Royal Brompton Hospital in London, UK, said it was thought to play an early role in various types of asthma.

In a phase 3 clinical trial, published on May 13, Teseperumab was found to be effective in relieving severe asthma in patients with significantly different causes of shortness of breath. New England Journal of Medicine.. Phase 3 is the final step required for US Food and Drug Administration approval.

“Severe asthma is difficult to manage and multiple inflammatory pathways often contribute to the complexity of a patient’s illness,” said Menzies Gau. He added that the results of this clinical trial “emphasize the potential of teseperumab to transform the treatment of a wide population of patients with severe asthma, regardless of the type of inflammation.”

For example, the results showed that patients benefited from this drug with or without seasonal allergies.

Asthma is a common lung problem. According to Menzies-Gow, 5% to 10% of asthma patients suffer from severe symptoms and frequent asthma attacks, despite receiving the maximum treatment available.

Tezepermab blocks a protein called thymic stroma phosphopoietin (TSLP) that promotes multiple inflammatory processes associated with asthma attacks, the study authors said in a background note.

Researchers have tested teseperumab in more than 1,000 people. About half were randomly assigned to receive the inert placebo, and the other half received 210 mg of drug injection each month.

Study participants were selected to reflect a variety of causes of severe asthma. For example, about half had elevated levels of eosinophils, a type of white blood cell that promotes swelling not only in the airways but throughout the respiratory system.

“In this particular study, subjects had to experience two exacerbations of asthma in the last 12 months,” said Dr. James Lee, an allergist and immunologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. So uncontrolled asthma, so to speak, the worst case. ”

After one year of treatment, patients with teseperumab had fewer asthma attacks and had better lung function, asthma control, and health-related quality of life than patients with placebo, the researchers reported.

In addition, patients improved, regardless of the specific problem that caused asthma.

• People with low eosinophil counts had a 41% reduction in asthma attacks, and those with high numbers had a 70% reduction.
• People affected by seasonal allergies had a 58% reduction in asthma attacks, while non-allergen-sensitive asthma patients had a 51% reduction.

“The current biological treatments we are doing are used in a subset of severe asthma,” Li said. “This particular drug has been shown to be effective regardless of eosinophil count or allergic status.”

This drug will be added to the arsenal of biological drugs available to treat people Severe asthmaSaid Dr. Richard Rocky, an allergy expert in Tampa, Florida, and a former president of the World Allergy Organization.

“Most of the drugs we already have show the effectiveness of this type, but this can interfere with the more inflammatory pathways,” said Rocky, the first in the treatment of certain types of asthma. He said he could prove his options and backup options for others.

Tezeperumab was also safe and had no serious side effects, experts said.

The FDA granted Tesepermab a breakthrough therapy designation in 2018. It aims to facilitate the development of promising new drugs and regulatory review.

The clinical trial was funded by pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and Amgen.

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