Drug work one of “7 Medical Breakthroughs that Changed Medicine in 2024.”
National Geographic recently highlighted “7 Medical Breakthroughs that Changed Medicine in 2024,” which included research from the UNC School of Medicine on the FDA-approved drug, omalizumab, used to reduce the risk of allergic reactions to peanuts and other foods. Edwin Kim, MD, Corinne Keet, MD, PhD, and Mike Kulis, PhD, were contributing authors to the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“I think this brings to the forefront the significant impact that food allergy has had on people today and in particular on young school-age children,” said Kim, chief of the Division of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology and director of the UNC Food Allergy Initiative at the UNC School of Medicine.
“To now be able to tell these folks that while it might not be a cure, there is a treatment you can take, something you can do for yourself or your kid, that can protect them in case they are exposed to the food is incredible,” Kim added. “It’s no longer sitting back and avoiding the food hoping nothing bad will happen. Folks still have to be careful but they don’t have to be paralyzed by their allergies.”
Dr. Kim’s research revealed results from the OUtMATCH clinical trial that showed how a 16-to-20-week course of the monoclonal antibody omalizumab increased the amount of peanut, tree nuts (cashew, hazelnut and walnut), egg, milk and wheat that multi-food allergic children as young as one-year could consume without a moderate or severe allergic reaction.
Nearly 67% of participants who completed the treatment could consume a single dose of 600 milligrams (mg) or more of peanut protein, compared to less than 7% of participants who received placebo with 600 mg representing approximately 2.5 peanuts. This was at least six times the amount of peanut protein that participants could tolerate at the start of the trial. Treatment with omalizumab also yielded similar outcomes for egg, milk, wheat, cashew, walnut and hazelnut at a threshold dose of 1,000 mg protein or more. These results show how one single treatment with omalizumab could reduce allergic reactions in patients who are allergic to these types of foods.
Milk, eggs, and peanut butter, which have become a staple in many kids lives today, can lead to serious medical problems, and these reactions can range from infancy through adulthood. According to the Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE), approximately 33 million people in the US have at least one food allergy. Nearly 11 percent of adults aged 18 or older have at least one food allergy, which is more than 27 million adults.
A food allergy reaction can occur within minutes or hours after eating an allergic food, and symptoms can range from mild to life-threatening. However, anti-IgE therapy using omalizumab is an important step in changing the tide in fighting food allergies and we can expect more breakthrough research and discoveries in 2025.
“We have shown that omalizumab provides protection from small exposures of the allergic food,” said Kim. “Next we need to dig into the data to see how strong and how consistent that protection can be. This could potentially open the door to allow folks to actually eat the foods that they are allergic to. In addition, knowing that oral immunotherapy has been an increasingly utilized form of “exposure therapy” for food allergy, we will also look at how omalizumab therapy compares to desensitization with oral immunotherapy. This work will provide valuable information to help patients understand the options available to them and to choose the best treatment for their situation.”
You can read the full National Geographic article, which is behind a pay wall, here. You can learn more about Dr. Edwin Kim’s work and allergic and immunological disorders, here.