What's New in Allergen Immunotherapy Patents? A Review.

Abstract

In recent years, allergies are on the rise. The growth of allergies cases has changed the immune system's response to new pathogens. The therapy used to treat these diseases is based on allergen avoidance, pharmacotherapy and allergen-specific immunotherapy. The last one has received a lot of interest in the research field, due to the possibility of leading the patient to a cure. In this sense, new allergen immunotherapy need to be developed or improved to increase safety and efficiency. This review aims to evaluate patents published, from 2015 to July 2020, that have developed allergic immunotherapy treatment and administration routes, as well as new alternatives of vehicles, carriers and delivery systems in this context. The advance of new patents has been mostly seen in China and United States. The oral route is the most used in the development of new allergy treatments. However, due to the challenges that still exist in allergy therapy, association with other pathways is interesting to amplify the possibilities and alternatives of treatment. Thus, other routes of administration for allergen-specific immunotherapy such as topical, sublingual and intranasal have been explored in the research and industrial fields. Nevertheless, it has been observed that few studies are using these alternative administration routes, probably due to the higher cost and lack of investments. The delivery systems are also other tools that can be more explored in the allergen immunotherapy formulations. The effectiveness, safety and acceptance of this therapy depends on the development of new formulations and routes of administration.