Yesterday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug Cinqair (reslizumab) for the treatment of severe asthma. Patients 18 years and up are permitted to use the medication with other asthma treatments as reported in Tech Times. Asthma patients now have more assistance in treating the condition in conjunction with other therapies.
The FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Director Badrul Chowdhury said, “Health care providers and their patients with severe asthma now have another treatment option to consider when the disease is not well controlled by their current asthma therapies.”
Cinqair’s effectiveness was tested in a double-blind, randomized examination in participants suffering from severe asthma while using existing medication. Patients either received supplementary Clinqair or a placebo on a four-week rotation. Concluding tests, researchers discovered subjects in the Clinqair designation experienced fewer asthma attacks and a longer interval between the first and second flair-ups.
Scientists noticed Clinqair recipients exhibited improved lung capacity observed through the volume of air inhaled and exhaled in a second. The drug works by lowering blood eosinophils, a white blood cell that triggers asthma, and is given intravenously to patients once every four weeks, and should only be administered in a clinical setting.
The most common side-effects of the drug, which is manufactured by Teva Pharmaceuticals, during clinical trials were muscle pains, severe allergies, and cancer.
Asthma is a condition that causes airways to be inflamed. At the onset of an attack, patients typically use devices such as asthma monitoring patches, but in some situations, hospitalization is required. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2013 that more than 22 million people in the U.S. have asthma.