Britons with severe asthma receive ‘life-changing’ DIY vaccine that ‘turns off’ attacks and reduces risk by 70%

Britons with severe asthma could benefit from a ‘life-changing’ vaccine which could reduce the risk of attacks by up to 70 per cent.

The home injection pen contains a drug called tezepelumab – which blocks a key chemical that causes seizures – and is more effective than current treatments.

Insiders told The Mail on Sunday the treatment will be approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) later this year after “dramatic” research.

The move follows recent approval by the European Medicines Agency for use across Europe.

Doctors spoke of “remarkable” changes after a course of the drug, which also causes far fewer side effects compared to powerful steroid inhalers.

A young patient completed a mountain bike marathon after previously not being able to exercise at all.

Another patient who had recently been hospitalized several times with asthma attacks said the drug “gave me my life back.”

Around eight million Britons suffer from asthma. It develops when the breathing tubes that carry air in and out of the lungs become inflamed and narrowed. For most, mild breathing problems are only occasional and are usually triggered by allergies or exercise.

The majority control their symptoms with inhalers. Sufferers are prescribed two types: one containing steroids to prevent attacks and another to relieve symptoms when an attack occurs. But around 200,000 asthmatics have a severe form of the disease.

They usually rely on stronger medications, including steroids, which come with a variety of side effects, including weight gain, nosebleeds and respiratory infections that often require hospitalization.

Dr Ian Pavord, professor of respiratory medicine at Oxford University who led studies on the new drug, says: ‘I used to see it as my job to manage orderly decline. Our only option was steroid pills, which were pretty depressing.

“After a few months, patients began to experience side effects that were often worse than the disease. But we had no choice, we had to keep the people alive.’

But in the past decade, a new class of drugs called monoclonal antibodies has brought hope to these patients.

Monoclonal antibodies, given by injection or infusion, block certain proteins released by the immune system that make pneumonia worse.

Because they are a more targeted solution, they carry fewer side effects and complications – but the current generation of monoclonal antibodies usually do not work as well in patients who have had asthma since childhood, because in some the inflammation is caused by an overreaction by the immune system, which is more difficult to stop.

However, research has shown that tezepelumab is highly effective in all patients.

Around eight million Britons suffer from asthma. It develops when the breathing tubes that carry air in and out of the lungs become inflamed and narrow (stock photo)

It blocks a chemical released from the lining of the airways that triggers a cascade of proteins that cause inflammation. “It’s a bit like turning off the light on the main line or the water supply,” says Prof Pavord.

“Turning off this chemical has a much broader effect of dampening the inflammatory response.”

“You get more bang for your buck with this drug,” he adds.

“We can help a wider variety of patients and it has a more dramatic impact than other comparable drugs.

“We believe that with this drug we can achieve remission of the disease in at least one out of three patients – possibly many more.”

In 2021, a large study of 1,000 international patients found that injecting the drug once a month for a year reduced asthma attacks by 71 percent.

Professor Pavord recalls that several patients in his clinical trial became “unrecognizable” after taking tezepelumab for a year.

“One was a 28-year-old woman who struggled to breathe at night and had added five stone to the steroids in recent years,” he says.

“She suddenly lost the extra weight and was also breathing well at night.

“She could run after her three young children without getting out of breath and that was the most important thing to her.

“Another patient was in a wheelchair and relied on an oxygen tank almost every day to breathe.

“After the trial, he no longer needed it. We expect NICE approval in August.

“It will be exciting to see the impact on patients in the clinic.”