A hope for all those who hate cats despite themselves. The Franco-Canadian pharmaceutical company Angany has started a first clinical trial aimed at testing a vaccine in humans to treat cat dander allergy, it said on Monday. The vaccine candidate, called ANG-101, is based on the development of a “bioparticle which imitates the shape and size of a virus and whose surface is covered with thousands of copies of the major cat allergen, the protein Fel d1,” the company explains.
The first patients were recruited at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London to begin clinical trials. Previously tested on animals, this treatment triggered “a very strong production of antibodies capable of blocking the allergic reaction”, the co-founder of Angany, Loïc Faye, told AFP.
Solution developed in France
The current treatment for allergies consists of injecting increasing doses of allergen extracts: this is desensitization, a long process and not always effective. Antihistamines are also used to relieve allergy-related symptoms.
“ANG-101 is the first in a portfolio of vaccines in development targeting major allergies in humans and pets,” underlines Louis-Philippe Vézina, President and CEO of Angany in the press release.
The technology was developed in France, in Val-de-Reuil (Eure) by the French start-up Angany Genetics, created in 2010 and became Angany after coming under Canadian ownership in 2017.