Could New Asthma Drug Prevent Life-Threatening Symptoms?

Asthma is one of the most common lung problems across the UK. It is most common in childhood, but can strike anyone at any time. While it’s not necessarily worried about as a life-threatening condition, asthmatics who suffer an attack but don’t have an inhaler can find themselves with very serious breathing difficulties. That means that there is a huge focus on finding drugs and treatments that can alleviate the worst symptoms.

With that in mind there is some very good news as a team of British scientists are in the midst of developing an anti-viral drug that could protect sufferers from the most problematic asthma symptoms. The team of researchers from the University of Southampton, and respiratory drug development company Synairgen have worked on the anti-viral drug known as SNG001. They are hopeful that additional research could even lead to a cure.

The SNG001 drug has been designed to protect asthma sufferers from respiratory virus infections like the common cold. Such infections can spread to the lungs, and this is a major cause of worsening asthma symptoms. It is estimated that viral infection is associated with up to eight out of ten asthma-related emergency hospital visits.

The team tested SNG001 on 134 adult asthma sufferers with mild to severe symptoms. They discovered that the drug stopped two-thirds of the patients from developing worse symptoms after catching a cold. The drug was tested against a control group using a placebo. The authors also discovered a 65 percent reduction in asthma symptoms for the patients, causing a significant number of sufferers to reduce the amount of times they inhaled a bronchodilator.

Scientists are hoping that this drug can soon be turned into a commercial product which would be a genuine help to millions of asthma sufferers throughout the UK.