Circassia Limited's Rapid Four-Dose ToleroMune(R) Treatment Maintains Significant Reduction in Allergy Symptoms During 12-Month Follow-up
The study followed an earlier randomised double-blind phase II trial in 202 cat allergy patients, in which those who received four doses of Circassia’s T-cell vaccine over 12 weeks had a significantly greater improvement in their symptoms than those on placebo. The treatment was extremely well tolerated.
The new results show that one year after the start of the original study, the treated group’s tolerance to cat allergens was maintained, and had continued to improve substantially following the completion of the treatment, despite the patients receiving no booster doses. As a result, immediately following treatment, the patients had experienced a 94% improvement in their total rhinitis symptoms compared with placebo. By the end of the 12-month study, the ToleroMune T- cell vaccine had reduced the same patients’ symptoms by 133% more than placebo (p=0.01). This treatment effect is 2.6 – 4.3 times that achieved by several currently approved allergy therapies in key clinical trials.
Commenting on the study results, Professor Mark Larché, Canada Research Chair in Allergy and Immune Tolerance, McMaster University, said, “Maintaining such a significant level of symptom improvement over an extended period is a major step forward. Achieving this with a course of just four doses is unprecedented, and represents an important breakthrough that has the potential to lead to improved treatments for allergy sufferers worldwide.”
“We are extremely excited by these new clinical results, which again demonstrate the potential of our ToleroMune technology to revolutionise allergy treatment,” said Steve Harris, Circassia’s CEO. “These results, achieved with our commercial room-temperature-stable formulation, clearly show that Circassia’s T-cell vaccines offer the prospect of major clinical and manufacturing benefits over traditional immunotherapies. We intend to capitalise on these impressive results as quickly as possible, and having recently completed one of the largest private fundraisings in the history of European biotechnology, plan to advance our cat allergy treatment into phase III testing in 2012.”
About Circassia’s allergy T-cell vaccines
Circassia is developing a range of allergy T-cell vaccines based on its proprietary ToleroMune® technology. The company has successfully completed a number of phase II studies with its cat, house dust mite and ragweed allergy products, and its grass allergy therapeutic is in clinical testing. Clinical results to date show that short treatment regimes with Circassia’s T-cell vaccines can greatly reduce patients’ allergic reactions, without the need for adjuvants or other immune stimulators, while proving extremely well tolerated. As a result, the treatments offer major potential clinical benefits compared with existing therapies, and have significant market opportunities. Over 150 million people suffer from allergic rhinitis in the US and Europe, and the current treatment market is approximately $12 billion per year.
About Circassia
Circassia was founded in 2006 by a team of highly experienced biotechnology scientists and entrepreneurs, and is chaired by the former Chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, Sir Richard Sykes. The company is based in the UK on the Oxford Science Park, and in Hamilton, Canada, where its joint venture Adiga Life Sciences is located. Its ToleroMune technology was developed originally by scientists at Imperial College, London. Having successfully completed four fundraising rounds Circassia is backed by a syndicate of world-class venture capital and institutional investors, including Imperial Innovations and Invesco Perpetual.