Treatment for peanut allergies could be near
by Claudia Boyd-Barrett posted in Parenting
A drug developer has come up with a new treatment for peanut allergies and hopes to get government approval to sell it by the end of the year.
The treatment, called AR101, involves sprinkling a capsule containing small amounts of peanut protein over food every day. The idea is that patients with peanut allergies become less sensitive to peanuts over time and can start to tolerate them.
Aimmune Therapeutics, a company based in California, tested the new drug on about 500 children ages 4 to 17 with severe peanut allergies. Each child received either the peanut drug or a dummy capsule over a one-year period. Neither the children nor their doctors knew whether they were taking the actual drug or a placebo.
By the end of the study, almost 70 percent of the kids who took AR101 could tolerate the equivalent of about two peanuts, compared to only 4 percent of those given the dummy capsules, Aimmune Therapeutics reported.
Nevertheless, about 20 percent of the kids dropped out of the study, some because they reportedly had reactions to the drug, so it may not be a good fit for everybody.
Independent experts still need to review the study, and the drug has not yet been approved. Analysts think the government will probably restrict who can use the treatment, even if approval goes ahead.
Also, the drug doesn't cure peanut allergies, but by improving tolerance could help protect people from severe and even fatal allergic reactions, a docto...
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