Latest Data from Multiple Studies Supports Development of Celiac Vaccine

Celiac.com 10/02/2017 - For anyone following the efforts by ImmusanT to develop a vaccine for celiac disease, the company's recent presentations at the 2017 International Celiac Disease Symposium (ICDS) in New Delhi, India, were welcome news.

Nexvax2® is a therapeutic vaccine intended to protect against the effects of gluten exposure while maintaining a gluten-free diet in HLA-DQ2.5+ patients with celiac disease.

Celiac.com Sponsor (A12):
The company announced at ICDS 2017 that it has presented data showing the immunologic basis for the early clinical effects of gluten in celiac disease.

Presented in two poster presentations and an oral presentation, the company says its data show that "early cytokine changes in blood following gluten ingestion could provide the basis for a new diagnostic for celiac disease in patients on a gluten free diet with an uncertain diagnosis," said Robert Anderson, MBChB, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of ImmusanT.

The company says its results are "significant" because celiac disease sufferers often adopt a gluten-free diet prior to being diagnosed by a doctor. This can cause problems and lead to unreliable or misleading results with current diagnostic tests.

ImmusanT says that their data demonstrate that early changes in circulating cytokines after a single gluten exposure may offer a clinical way to assess celiac disease activity.

The company says that the data, along with the potential to differentiate between celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) by assessing IL-2 levels, support the science behind targeted immunotherapies such as Nexvax2®.

Read more at BusinessWire.com