Developing New Antibody Treatments to Keep Allergies at Bay

If you suffer from allergies, you’re probably used to getting through pollen season with hefty doses of antihistamines and a bottomless supply of tissues. But newer treatments made from lab-created proteins might point toward a less sniffly future.

These monoclonal antibody treatments are not inexpensive and are currently approved in the U.S. for more severe allergic conditions, such as food allergies and chronic inflammation of the nasal passages and sinuses. Earlier this year, however, one such treatment was approved in China for seasonal allergies. And, a newly published study in the journal Frontiers in Immunology finds that similar antibodies can be used for specific pollen allergies — at least in mice.

It’s a promising area in allergy medicine, claims Sayantani Sindher, a clinical associate professor of allergy and clinical immunology at Stanford Univ. Sindher was not involved in the new research but treats patients at her clinic with monoclonal antibodies.

“This field is now really exploding with a lot of novel strategies and techniques and ways where we can address the disease upstream,” Sindher says. “So instead of treating the symptoms, we’re almost trying to prevent it from happening in the first place. It’s really exciting to see options.”

As the name suggests, anti-histamines target histamine, a signaling chemical the body releases in response to an allergen. Histamine is responsible for many of the unpleasant symptoms of an allergy,...