LONDON — AstraZeneca’s AZN.L Fasenra, an injectable treatment for severe asthma, is more effective during attacks than the oral steroid that has been the standard of care for 50 years, cutting the need for further treatment by 30%, according to a study published in November.
The antibody drug known chemically as benralizumab was approved by U.S. and EU regulators in 2017 as a treatment for a severe form of the breathing disorder called eosinophilic asthma that targets a type of white blood cell associated with lung inflammation.
The new study, led by King’s College London researchers, involved 158 patients in Britain who were at high risk of an asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) attack.
The researchers found that Fasenra can be more effective than the oral corticosteroid prednisolone when injected during an attack, also called an exacerbation, which can involve symptoms such as wheezing, coughing and chest tightness. Steroids such as prednisolone can reduce inflammation in the lungs but also may cause severe side effects.
The exacerbations account for 30% of COPD flare-ups and nearly half of all asthma attacks, and can become more frequent as the disease progresses.
Many patients who suffer these attacks need repeated courses of steroids, re-hospitalisation or die within 90 days, the researchers said.
In the study, after 28 days of treatment respiratory symptoms were found to be better with benralizumab. After 90 days, there were four times fewer people in the AstraZeneca drug group that failed treatment compared to standard of care with prednisolone.
The findings show that the AstraZeneca drug can also be used during the emergency of a life-threatening attack, at a hospital or potentially even at home, to reduce the need for further treatment and hospitalizations, researchers said.
“This could be a game-changer for people with asthma and COPD,” Professor Mona Bafadhel from King’s College London, who led the trial, said in a statement.
Asthma and COPD exacerbations cause nearly four million deaths worldwide each year, but treatment for the chronic conditions has not changed in five decades, she noted.
Fasenra is AstraZeneca’s second-best selling drug from its respiratory and immunology portfolio. It brought in $436 million in sales in the third quarter, up 13% from a year earlier.
The study was sponsored by the University of Oxford and the research received funding from the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker. The findings were published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal.
—Reporting by Maggie FickEditing by Bill Berkrot
