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Monica Kraft, MD: The New Biologics Entering Asthma
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The 2019 CHEST Meeting in New Orleans may be headlined by newly approved therapies including dupilumab and tezepelumab.
Discussing the future as asthma care is as simple as looking about 2 weeks ahead. In detailing its efficacy as a potential add-on biologic therapy for the treatment of asthma in both adolescent and adult patients, Monica Kraft, MD, shared her anticipation of dupilumab’s approval by the US Food and Drug Administration later this month.
In a further interview with MD Magazine® at the 2018 CHEST Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX, the Department of Medicine Chair at the University of Arizona College of Medicine — Tuscon detailed how dupilumab may not be the only biologic headlining asthma data at next year’s meeting in New Orleans.
MD Mag: What new developments will highlight asthma discussion at CHEST 2019?
Kraft: So, next year in New Orleans, we'll have some additional interventions to talk about. The asthma world is very busy right now. I think we've developed a real understanding of the immunology of the disease and then in so doing, what therapies have been developed targeting specific inflammatory pathways.
We have 4 biologics right now to choose from. We're going to have a fifth, dupilumab, which targets the interleukin-4 receptor, in about 2 weeks. By next year we may have another biologic, tezepelumab, which blocks TSLP, and that's an epithelial cell product much higher up on the inflammatory cascade. It actually may benefit this type 2 asthma that we've been talking about or non type-2, meaning non-eosinophilic asthma. So that could be a special biologic for that reason, and that it may not matter what kind of inflammation, since it's really targeting something very high up on the inflammatory cascade. So that's very exciting.
There's an anti-CRTH2 product under development, which binds to the prostaglandin receptor, and it also has some really nice benefits, more in type 2 asthma space. So next year we may be talking about 3 more biologics that are available for use, and then how to navigate that space.
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