Moscow will start testing the first-ever drug designed to cure allergy to birch pollen, according to Veronika Skvortsova, the head of Russia’s Federal Medical-Biological Agency (FMBA). 

According to the newspaper Kommersant, the drug is also designed to be used to treat the effects of “similar allergens,” such as apples, peaches, peanuts, and soy. The trial announced last week is expected to start in September and to be completed by summer 2024.  

The drug developed by FMBA’s Immunology Institute together with the Medical University of Vienna could revolutionize the allergen-specific immunotherapy, according to the researchers behind the project.

The existing treatments can take several years and involve dozens of shots, and still only end up reducing the symptoms rather than eliminating them completely. According to researchers, the new treatment would require just between three and five shots to be effective. 

“We have charted the birch allergen and found the most important parts in its structure,” said Igor Shilovsky, the deputy director for science and innovations at the Immunology Institute. He added that scientists removed the parts responsible for toxicity and potential side effects and created an anti-allergy “vaccine.” 

In the 1990s, the researchers determined that allergens are a group of proteins, which made allergen-specific therapy possible. The development of vaccines based on recombinant allergens and synthetic allergen peptides has been discussed since the 2010s. Yet, all known treatments require a long time to produce sustainable effects. 

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