Shares in Allergy Therapeutics (LON:AGY) rose 2% after it said it had received positive results from a study of its dust mite allergy treatment, which found it to be effective and well tolerated.
The one-year follow-up assessment of Acarovac Plus was carried out by Dr Albert Roger, of the Universitari Hospital Germans Trias Pujol, Badalona, Spain.
He found Acarovac Plus saw a greater than 50% decrease in symptom scores in the 30 patients who took part in the study.
“[The] therapy not only led to a high rate of patient satisfaction early in treatment, but also the convenient maintenance regime of injections every six weeks has the potential to improve the adherence and compliance with the vaccine regime that is essential for a successful treatment," the researcher said.
On the back of these promising results, Allergy has begun developing an ultra-short course dust mite treatment called Acarovac Quattro.
It will sit in the company’s medicine chest of products alongside Pollinex Quattro for hay fever.
Chief executive Manuel Llobet said: “We expect that Acarovac Quattro will have all the benefits of both Pollinex Quattro technology platform coupled with the efficacy seen with Acarovac Plus.
“Over 20% of the population in both Europe and the US have an allergic reaction to house dust mites and so an effective short course allergy vaccine will be an important and potentially valuable addition to our product range."
Dr Murray Skinner, Allergy’s associate director of quality and science, reckons there could be a significant potential market for Acarovac, which uses the same platform as the company’s flagship pollen product.
He told Proactive Investors: “It is a market we are involved but one we are confident we have an exciting new product to meet the market requirements.”
While the development Acarovac will be monitored by the market with more than passing interest, plans for flagship product Pollinex have really excited the market.
Following what it called "productive" talks with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the pharma group last week announced it is to resume its clinical programme of grass allergy product Pollinex Quattro in a bid to take it through to a market launch in 2019.
A major milestone, it also draws a line firmly under past problems with the pipeline.
In 2007, the FDA put a stop to the development of Pollinex after one patient had an adverse reaction to the grass allergy injection.
The regulatory green light now sets in train clinical trials, scheduled to start in September this year, with contract research organisation Inflamax set to run the studies, which represents a further de-risking.
Management is optimistic that the product will hit the US markets at the right time, when the market may be more receptive to a European type model.
The firm is already an established provider of allergy vaccines in Europe but this will mark its first foray into the US.
Allergy has already spent U$100mln on the Pollinex programmes.
It is worth noting that Allergy, via its core European business, is cash generative. It recently funded the purchase of Spanish vaccine specialist Alerpharma from its own coffers.
The interim results revealed the group posted double digit revenue growth, due to increased market share, bringing it to just over £30mln and an operating profit of £7.5mln, up 13% on the year earlier.
The shares, up 2% at 23.9p today, have advance 62% in the last year.