In senior patients with asthma, treatment with reslizumab improved asthma exacerbations and other clinical measures.
Treatment with the investigational drug reslizumab improved asthma exacerbations and other clinical measures in patients ages 65 and up with asthma and elevated blood eosinophils, researchers reported here.
In a post-hoc analysis of two, phase III clinical trials, the reduction in clinical asthma exacerbation frequency for patients >65 years was 67% (95% CI 29%-85%) versus placebo controls (rate ratio 0.33, 95% CI 0.15-0.71), compared with 53% in younger adults, ages 18-64 (95% CI 40%-64%) versus placebo controls (RR 0.47, 95% CI 0.36-0.60), stated David I. Bernstein, MD, of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and colleagues at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology annual meeting.
In June 2015, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries said that the FDA had accepted a Biologics License Application (BLA) for reslizumab, an investigational humanized monoclonal antibody that targets interleukin-5.
In December of last year, an FDA advisory committee voted in favor of approval of reslizumab for the treatment of eosinophilic asthma in patients 18 and older despite the emergence of two safety signals — anaphylaxis and muscle toxicity — during clinical trials.
Bernstein’s group pooled results from two duplicate, phase III, 52-week, placebo-controlled studies testing reslizumab (3mg/kg IV every 4 weeks) for the treatment of asthma, and stratified the analysis into two age groups.
