A trial treatment for peanut allergy has attracted attention in the media, with a recent Washington state publication highlighting California-based Aimmune Therapeutics Inc.’s “AR101” as a potential immunotherapy with the ability to impact allergen-specific T cells.
Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason, a Seattle nonprofit focused on autoimmune disease research, reported that Aimmune’s investigational therapy targets an immune cell subset called TH2A cells — potentially desensitizing patients to the allergy — in its Aug. 2 issue of "Science Translational Medicine."
“We’re hopeful that the identification of these TH2A cells will give researchers a tool to help improve medicine’s ability to diagnose, monitor and treat allergies,” study leader Dr. Erik Wambre said. “[We] saw targeted elimination of peanut-specific TH2A cells after only six months of AR101 therapy.”
Wambre noted those patients given AR101 showing reduced numbers of TH2A cells, while placebo recipients demonstrated none.
“Though this preliminary experiment was small, the results were clear,” Wambre said, adding that he and his associates were “excited” to analyze data from a similar, larger ongoing study.
“We’re committed to advancing the understanding of food allergy and very pleased to see these data from our ongoing collaboration with Benaroya Research Institute and Dr. Erik Wambre published,” Aimmune’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Daniel Adelman said. “We look forward to further corroborating data in this area from the samples collected at key points of our ongoing Phase 3 Palisade trial.”
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