Readers of DailyUpdates, our daily tracker for the drug discovery sector (click here), or indeed anyone who follows advances in the pharmaceutical industry will be aware of major changes occurring in the field of asthma therapeutics. For example, Novartis announced on June 23rd that the novel IgE-blocker Xolair® (Omalizumab) has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of moderate-to-severe persistent asthma in adults and adolescents.

This activity is hardly surprising given that the incidence of asthma has dramatically increased over recent years. Furthermore, although currently available treatments are generally effective patient compliance that is currently poor, especially with respect to inhaled treatment. In addition 5% of patients are unresponsive to these treatments and it is this cohort that accounts for a large segment of asthma related healthcare costs. Novel non-inhaled treatments such as Xolair stand to offer considerable benefit to asthmatics.

Global revenue for 2001 from asthma therapies has been reported by some to be as high as $11.7 billion and up until recently annual growth rates of 10-15% have been reported. Most sources however predict that this level of growth is not sustainable. Competition within the anti-asthmatic market will therefore grow increasingly intense. In response to activity generated by new and emerging asthma therapeutics, the increased need for these treatments, the commercial benefit that they could enjoy and the competition that they will experience, LeadDiscovery has recently produce a state of the art of asthma therapeutics (Click here), which along with other targets evaluated the potential of molecules that block IgE pathways.

The recent regulatory success of Omalizumab highlights the rewards that can be gained from targeting IgE-mediated inflammation, a key feature of asthma. CD23, a cell-surface molecule, is involved in a variety of pathways likely to influence IgE production and inflammation in allergic disorders, such as allergic rhinitis and allergic asthma. Hence as with Omalizumab, an antibody which neutralizes IgE, anti-CD23 antibodies may also be beneficial in the treatment of asthma. IDEC-152 is one such therapeutic, which has recently been evaluated in patients with mild-to-moderate persistent allergic asthma. In a single-dose, dose-escalating, placebo-controlled study involved 30 patients, Rosenwasser et al report that IDEC-152 was safe and produced sustained and dose-dependent decreases in mean IgE concentrations. These data suggest that IDEC-152 offer an approach to reducing IgE levels and may therefore produce therapeutic activity in asthmatics. Further trials investigating functional improvement are eagerly awaited

Entry date Monday, November 10, 2003

Adapted from Rosenwasser et al, J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2003 Sep;112(3):563-70