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Circassia’s Hay Fever Treatment Improves Patients’ Allergy Symptoms in Phase II Clinical Trial
Treatment Progresses into Final Phase II Clinical Study
OXFORD, UK - 27 September 2011 - Circassia Ltd, a specialty biopharmaceutical company focused on allergy, today announced positive phase II clinical results showing that its ToleroMune® hay fever vaccine substantially improved patients' allergy symptoms compared with those on placebo. The treatment was extremely well tolerated.
During the randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase II study conducted in 50 hay fever sufferers in Quebec, Canada, patients received four doses from one of five different treatment regimes over a 12-week period. Five weeks later, investigators tested the patients' skin and eye responses to grass pollen. The results show that the treatment reduced allergic symptoms in patients' eyes by up to 30% more than placebo. In addition, the therapy improved early and late skin reactions by up to 54% and 19% above placebo respectively. The ToleroMune T-cell vaccine had a similar safety profile to placebo.
Following these results, Circassia has initiated the final phase II trial of its hay fever treatment. The double-blind, placebo-controlled study is underway in Kingston, Canada in 280 volunteers, and will assess the effectiveness of the ToleroMune T-cell vaccine at improving patients' nasal symptoms and eye responses when exposed to grass pollen in an exposure chamber.
"Achieving these clinical results is particularly encouraging as hay fever is an extremely common allergy, which can have a major impact on sufferers," said Steve Harris, Circassia's CEO. "Many current therapies provide short-term symptom relief only, while traditional immunotherapies can require specialist treatment over several years to address the underlying disease. Circassia's latest results follow earlier successful studies in a range of different allergies. Our clinical data show that Circassia's T-cell vaccines have the potential to revolutionise allergy therapy, and these recent results give us the confidence to proceed with the final phase II testing of our unique hay fever treatment."
27 September 2011