New research from the 2022 AAAAI Annual Meeting examines if the time of year affects the effectiveness of the new biologic.
Milwaukee, WI – Adults and adolescents with severe, uncontrolled asthma treated with tezepelumab experienced fewer asthma exacerbations throughout all seasons of the year compared to the placebo, according to a recent study that will be presented at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI).
“We know that different seasons can impact asthma severity and control,” said Flavia C. L. Hoyte, MD, primary author of the study. “This promising data confirms that tezepelumab is effective not only regardless of asthma phenotype, but also regardless of the season. For patients with uncontrolled, severe asthma, it is vital to have effective medications that can improve symptoms at all times of year.”
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in December, approved Tezspire (tezepelumab-ekko) injection as an add-on maintenance treatment to improve severe asthma symptoms when used with a patient’s current asthma medicine. It’s the first treatment for severe asthma without biomarker or phenotypic limitation. These results come from a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study called NAVIGATOR. Patients between the ages of 12 and 80 were randomized 1:1 to receive tezepelumab or a placebo subcutaneously every four weeks over the course of 52 weeks. Researchers examined the annualized asthma exacerbation rate (AAER) and number of patients without exacerbations on a season by season basis.
Of 1,059 patients in the study, 528 received tezepelumab and 531 received the placebo. When compared with the placebo, tezepelumab reduced the AAER by 63% in winter, 46% in spring, 62% in summer and 54% in fall. Patients who took tezepelumab had fewer asthma exacerbations in winter (81.7% vs 66.6%), spring (84.3% vs 76.3%), summer (86.8% vs 73.1%) and fall (79.4% vs 66.6%). For consistency, data from patients in the Southern Hemisphere was altered to align with Northern Hemisphere seasons.
Visit aaaai.org to learn more about asthma. Research presented at the AAAAI Annual Meeting, February 25-28 in Phoenix, Arizona, is published in an online supplement to The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
Dr. Kenneth Backman of Allergy & Asthma Care comments: "Tezepelumab offers another option for severe asthma, and is the first biologic for asthma that has no limitations in prescribing regarding allergic antibody levels (IgE) or allergy white blood cell levels (eosinophils.) Tezepelumab offers a wide range of asthma patients a treatment that can reduce the need for corticosteroid medications."
