Xconomy: VentiRx, With Venti-Sized Ambition to Treat (and Maybe Prevent) Allergies, Passes First Big Test
Summary
But now VentiRx Pharmaceuticals, a small biotech with operations in Seattle and San Diego, has generated some intriguing data that suggests it might have found a completely new way to treat—and possibly prevent—allergies.The VentiRx drug, designed to be the first once-weekly nasal spray for allergies, showed a statistically significant improvement at both a low and high dose, when compared to patients who got a placebo.While there are lots of different options for treating allergies—antihistamine pills, corticosteroids as nasal sprays—VentiRx is trying to pull off a novel biological trick by stimulating something called the TLR8 receptor of the innate immune system.By stimulating the TLR8 receptor of the immune system in a generalized sense, VentiRx is hopeful that this drug could be helpful for people with a wide variety of different kinds of allergies to ragweed, pollens, or various other allergens, Hershberg says.So VentiRx is now having some advanced talks with potential partners with the money and manpower to run a global clinical trial plan, with the big numbers of patients required to win approval from the FDA and other regulatory agencies around the world.