Allergy Therapeutics PLC (AIM:AGY, OTC:AGYTF) has announced a significant milestone in its innovative peanut allergy treatment with the successful completion of skin-prick testing on peanut-allergic patients in the phase I PROTECT clinical trial.
The results indicate a substantial reduction in skin reactivity for the company's VLP Peanut vaccine compared to standard peanut extract.
This promising outcome clears the path for the next stage of the study, where healthy subjects will receive increasing subcutaneous doses of the vaccine candidate to further evaluate its safety.
Allergy Therapeutics expects to have safety and tolerability data for allergic subjects by the fourth quarter of this year.
Manuel Llobet, CEO of Allergy Therapeutics, said: "Peanut allergy is one of the most common types of food allergies, and even the smallest amounts of peanuts can cause a potentially life-threatening reaction for some individuals. With the increasing prevalence of peanut allergies, it's crucial that we develop better treatment options."
Allergy Therapeutics' VLP Peanut vaccine employs sophisticated virus-like particle (VLP) technology, designed to enhance the body's immune response to the peanut allergen by simulating an inactive virus.
The plant-based, engineered virus incorporates immunologically optimised cucumber mosaic virus-derived VLPs, displaying the major peanut allergen (Ara h2) on its surface.
This innovative approach induces protective antibodies without replicating or infecting human cells, representing a major advancement over existing allergen-specific immunotherapy treatments.