Sanofi and Regeneron have come together once again to fight another health concern, this time producing dupilumab to tackle the underlying causes of asthma. At the American Thoracic Society meeting in Philadelphia, the partners unveiled Phase IIa data on dupilumab, an interleukin 4 receptor which modulates signalling of both the IL-4 and IL-13 proteins, which are linked to inflammation.
For the study, 104 patients with moderate-to-severe, persistent asthma that was not well controlled were treated with dupilumab or placebo. For the first four weeks of the study, this treatment was administered on top of inhaled glucocorticosteroids (ICS) and long-acting beta agonist (LABA) therapy, but the LABA was withdrawn at week four and the ICS was tapered to withdrawal between weeks six and nine.
The results of the study revealed that, compared to placebo, dupilumab demonstrated an 87% reduction in the incidence of asthma exacerbations. There were other wellness improvements observed also, such as better lung function and forced expiratory volume over one second (FEV1). In both groups, treatment-linked adverse events were similar; affecting 76.9% of the placebo patients, and 80.8% of the dupilumab users.
According to Sally Wenzel of the University of Pittsburgh and lead investigator of the trial, ‘despite existing therapies, a significant number of patients with moderate-to-severe, persistent allergic asthma are not optimally controlled, which puts them at risk of poor clinical outcomes’. Dr Wenzel noted, however, that ‘these encouraging data support the potential role of IL-4/IL-13 blockade in an important subset of asthma patients’.
She continued, ‘overall, these are the most exciting data we’ve seen in asthma in 20 years’. Dr Wenzel explained that wellness experts ‘have been treating asthma with sort of Band-Aid therapies that didn’t get at the underlying causes,’ but dupilumab, which in the trial was dosed subcutaneously, weekly at 300mg, could be an important step in tackling the root of the problem.
In terms of other health concerns, dupilumab is also being developed as a treatment to one day protect your wellbeing against atopic dermatitis. Yet this isn’t the first drug that Sanofi and Regeneron have developed together, as the collaboration has produced a cholesterol treatment targeting PCSK9, the late-stage rheumatoid arthritis treatment sarilumab and the already-launched Zaltrap (ziv-aflibercept) for colorectal cancer.