Roche's New Asthma Drug Deemed Promising

Roche has created a new drug in order to treat patients suffering from asthma. The drug, an experimental antibody, is called quilizumab. In mid-stage trials, quilizumab has shown promise in treating the breathing disorder.

Quilizumab works by blocking the production of an inflammatory protein that is key in the asthma condition. The drug is still being studied and developed, but the results of the mid-stage trial has shown that the drug can be tolerated safely and that there are minimal side effects. However, there are still researchers who believe that the drug needs more testing before it can be declared a success.

Dr. Rohit Katial, an allergist-immunologist at the National Jewish Medical & Research Center in Denver, Colorado, who wasn't involved with the new study, told LiveScience that doctors aren’t sure about Quilizumab just yet. “It's always exciting when it's a new target that we haven't had. But there's no way to know how it's going to behave clinically,” he said.

The research was published in the July edition of the Science Translational Medicine journal. The researchers are still working to determine if Quilizumab is significantly better for treating asthma than other drugs currently on the market. Results from the study showed reduced levels of the IgE protein in the blood six months after the patients took their last dose. The IgE protein reacts with cells in the body during the asthmatic process.

Should responses to Quilizumab continue to be promising, the drug could be up against other top players, including AstraZeneca , GlaxoSmithKline, and Sanofi, which all are working on biotech medicines for treating the condition.

Analysts expect sales of biotech asthma drug sales to increase to $7.5 billion this year.