Vaccine could help hay fever misery
10:26pm Monday 9th June 2008
Respite could be on the way for thousands of people suffering with hay fever because of a new symptom-reducing vaccine.
Clinical trials show the treatment can significantly reduce the miserable effects of the allergy, such as sneezing, itchy eyes and a runny nose.
The vaccine, made by Allergy Theraputics in Dominion Way, Worthing, could provide a lifetime's relief after only four injections.
Up to one in four people across Britain suffer at some point with hay fever, which is caused by an allergy to pollen, particularly grass pollen.
The company gave 1,028 volunteers in Europe and North America either its vaccine - Pollinex Quattro - or a placebo just before the start of the 2007 pollen season.
On average, the participants' symptoms improved by 13% compared with use of a placebo, but a few hundred people who kept the most complete records reported an improvement of 27%.
During the trials, volunteers who received one vaccine injection four weeks in a row rated signs of improvement in an electronic diary every day.
Keith Carter, Allergy Therapeutics chief executive, said: "It is exciting news for sufferers, particularly for those who cannot get lasting relief from antihistamines or steroids.
"These injections essentially retrain the immune system so it is as close to a cure as you can get.
"Patients take four injections over a three-week period ahead of the hay fever season.
"After three years, doctors will no longer need to administer the treatment because the sufferer's immune system will be retrained."
Treatments now available require people to take a series of pollen injections that gradually increase in strength, eventually teaching the immune system to ignore pollen.
It is a long process and often requires 100 shots spread over up to five years. The new vaccine works by dampening a sufferer's usual response to grass pollen and encouraging a milder reaction.
It works in such a short time because its pollen protein has been modified to sneak past the body's antibodies, allowing large doses to be given from the start.
It also works rapidly because it lodges in tissue rather than going directly into the bloodstream, prolonging its effect on the immune system.
Allergy Therapeutics will present the results at a meeting tomorrow in Barcelona, Spain.
The company hopes to apply for approval in Britain next year.
Mr Carter said: "We hope the treatment will be available in 2010 but it could be 2011."
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