A peanut allergy treatment may be available starting next year, but it isn’t a cure.
A successful study of the new peanut allergy treatment saw roughly two thirds of patients able to consume small amounts of peanuts without suffering from a severe reaction. However, the study was only effective with children, as all adults in the study saw no positive results.
The new peanut allergy treatment actually works by having the patients consume small amounts of peanuts over the course of six months. After those first six months, they then continue to consume roughly two peanuts a day to maintain their tolerance to the food.
It’s important to note that this peanut allergy treatment isn’t meant to allow patients to eat foods with high levels of peanuts in them. Instead, the goal is to make it so that they no longer have to worry about trace amounts of peanuts in other foods from cross contamination.
The peanut allergy treatment will likely be available for purchase by the end of next year. However, the finer details of it are still unknown. This includes if the drug will be covered by insurance and just how much it will cost, reports The New York Times.
“It’s not everything we would hope for, but it’s still fantastic to be able to raise someone’s threshold from a teeny tiny amount of peanut to a couple of peanuts or more,” Dr. Scott Sicherer, director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine, told CNN.
As of this writing, William White did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
