Peanut allergy is the most common food allergy in children, and only 20% outgrow the allergy over time. The symptoms of peanut allergy can range from mild cases of hives, dizziness, and swelling, to the most severe case of anaphylaxis. With peanut allergy cases rising in the Western world, there is an increasing demand to develop treatments to deal with them.
Peanut allergy arises when special cells (dendritic cells) in a person’s immune system recognize the peanut molecules as foreign substances. Ingesting peanuts triggers IgE antibody production, which stimulates other inflammatory immune cells that help produce the allergic response. Currently, there is only one FDA-approved drug, Palforzia, that works as oral immunotherapy, or a type of therapy that helps adjust your immune system. Patients taking Palforzia can gradually decrease their sensitivity to peanuts or make their allergic reaction less severe by slowly receiving more exposure to peanut protein with the oral drug. Unfortunately, attempts at other immunotherapies have not been proven as successful, and many have been considered unsafe for use outside of carefully monitored trials.
Peanut allergy typically shows up at early ages, and children are most affected by severe symptoms.
Some people must carry around EpiPens to prevent anaphylaxis.
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Continued efforts to develop a safer drug have shown to be successful, however, with the recent FDA clearance of an “Investigational New Drug Application” for a peanut allergy vaccine by Allergy Therapeutics. The drug is a novel virus-like particle (VLP)-based vaccine candidate known as “VLP Peanut”. Despite being virus-like, the particle doesn’t do damage to the body a cold virus would! Instead, the vaccine particle has a major peanut allergen on its surface that helps train the body to not react in a life-threatening way to peanuts.
During initial trials, VLP Peanut did not elicit an allergic reaction in patients dosed with the vaccine. The results of the study were promising, showing there was a significant reduction in the number of activated immune cells and histamine release, which is the primary chemical that causes allergic reactions. In addition, VLP Peanut switched the immune response in patients to a hypoallergenic pathway, which means peanut exposure would cause little to no allergic response. From these positive results, Allergy Therapeutics hopes to advance the peanut allergy vaccine candidate to a wider range of patients in further clinical trials set to take place in late 2022.
With the implementation of VLP Peanut, there is greater potential for providing a long-lasting protective immune response for those with peanut allergies. This new vaccine may pave the way for the development of vaccines to treat other common allergies as well. Although immunotherapies may only reduce the severity of allergic reactions for now, eventually we may witness a cure for all allergies!
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