Dupilumab for Eosinophilic Esophagitis

New phase 3 data presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) 2021 Virtual Sessions this week showed continued benefit of dupilumab (Dupixent) for the treatment of the gastrointestinal inflammatory disease eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE).

The new data, presented by Evan Dellon, MD, MPH, of the Center for Gastrointestinal Biology and Disease at the UNC School of Medicine, contribute to a half-decade of promising research development into treating the rare disease.

What’s more, Dellon told HCPLive during AAAAI 2021, it contributes toward caring for a patient population without many, if any, available drugs.

“Right now in the US, there’s still a huge need for EoE treatments,” Dellon explained. “There’s still nothing approved in the US, and only one drug approved in Europe and Canada right now, which is topical steroids.”

The new phase 3 outcomes build on recent phase 2 research for dupilumab, an interleukin 4 and 13 (IL-4; IL-13) targeting monoclonal antibody with indicated benefit across a spectrum of inflammatory disease. As Dellon explained, EoE pathogenesis involves cytokine inflammation similar to that of atopic dermatitis—for which dupilumab is already approved as a treatment.

“It seems to be a very potent anti-inflammatory approach for EoE, and it’s reasonably high up in the inflammatory cascade,” he explained. “So you theoretically see a nice downstream effect on the inflammatory effector cells.”