J. Andrew Bird, MD: Oral Immunotherapy Product for Peanut Allergy

A new HCPLive interview at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) 2023 Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX, featured a discussion with J. Andrew Bird, MD, in which he discussed data on a new immunotherapy product for peanut allergy.

Bird serves as Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Internal Medicine, as Dedman Family Scholar in Clinical Care, and as director of the Food Allergy Center at Children’s Medical Center for University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

“So I was talking on behalf of a number of investigators,” he explained. “This was looking at a large number of studies conducted by Aimmune Therapeutics, which is looking at their peanut oral immunotherapy product. And we were able to analyze a combination of multiple studies that have been conducted, looking at the safety of peanut oral immunotherapy.”

The product, called peanut allergen powder-dnfp (PTAH) is an oral immunotherapy for those with allergies to take daily, designed to mitigate allergic reactions following peanut exposure.

Bird was asked about the findings and any surprising elements of the data compiled from the studies included in his AAAAI presentation.

“So what we were able to see by looking at all these groups was that the most common adverse events are in the first year of therapy, and then gradually, the longer patients are on therapy, the fewer side effects you tend to see,” he said. “Not necessarily unexpected (but) I was surprised to see, when looking at the data pretty closely, that if you look more closely at the second year of therapy, you see not as much of a decline.”

Bird added that in his team’s view, the potential for patients to be non-adherent to their recommendations may have actually led to some adverse events in the second year of treatment.

Overall, however, Bird was positive about his team’s findings on the product that were included in the presentation.

“So we did see some adverse events, typically during up dosing, which is the very first portion of treatment,” he said. “And it just shows that the longer you're on it, the more desensitized you get. And we coupled that with some immunologic findings, suggesting again that there's a robust immunologic response suggesting protection against external exposure to peanuts while you're on therapy.”

To find out more about Bird’s presentation from AAAAI, view the full interview above.