By: Peter Olins, PhD on June 10, 2014.
Alvine Pharmaceuticals continues to make progress in developing a drug for celiac disease patients that could neutralize the effects of gluten in the diet. In their latest Phase II clinical trial, the drug, ALV003, was effective in blocking the biological response to 2 grams of gluten, given daily over a period of 6 weeks. Damage to the intestinal villi was prevented (as measured by the ration of villus height to crypt depth). Infiltration of lymphocytes into the intestinal epithelium was also blocked.
ALV003 is a mixture of two enzymes designed to break down gluten into small fragments which would no longer provoke an immune reaction.
However, no statistically significant reduction in clinical symptoms was observed. It is not clear whether this was due to variation among the patients in this relatively small clinical trial (40 patients enrolled), or whether this was a real effect.
I discussed the Alvine Pharmaceuticals clinical research program in greater detail in a 2011 blog: Four Clinical Trials of ALV003
Journal Article: Lahdeaho ML, et al.
Abstract Published in: Gastroenterology (2014) 146: 1649-1658.
Read more → Glutenase ALV003 Attenuates Gluten-Induced Mucosal Injury in Patients With Celiac Disease
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