Ragweed
OXFORD, England — Circassia Ltd. announced Feb. 12 that its ToleroMune ragweed allergy T-cell vaccine achieved positive results in a recently completed phase II clinical trial.
Ragweed allergy is particularly common in the United States, where it affects approximately 25 percent of the population.
Circassia’s latest clinical results follow two earlier successful phase II studies with the company’s T-cell vaccine against cat allergy. The company has three additional phase II trials ongoing, targeting house dust mite and cat allergies, and plans to initiate three further studies in the coming months, extending the portfolio into the field of grass allergy.
The biopharmaceutical company focuses on allergies.
The results from Circassia’s latest clinical study demonstrate that four doses of the ToleroMune T-cell vaccine greatly improved the allergic responses measured in the trial. The efficacy endpoints, which included the early phase skin response to a challenge dose of ragweed allergen, were measured both before and after the ragweed season.
This response, which is commonly used by allergists to assess allergic status, showed a characteristic increase in the placebo group by the end of the ragweed season, resulting in values 37 percent higher than baseline.
In contrast, the optimal ToleroMune T-cell vaccine regime reversed this seasonal increase and reduced it by an additional 47 percent compared with the pre-ragweed season baseline. Throughout the study, the ToleroMune vaccines were safe and well tolerated, with a treatment-related safety profile similar to placebo.
"Unlike current immunotherapies, which require increasing doses over a number of months and several years of maintenance, ToleroMune therapy is short and simple, and minimizes the risk of the severe and sometimes life-threatening side effects associated with many existing treatments," said Steve Harris, Circassia’s CEO.
