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A monthly injection can be serious asthma A new trial finds that patients can stop taking daily steroid pills without it affecting their symptoms.
The drug, tezepelumab (also known as Tezspire and made by AstraZeneca), works by binding to and blocking a protein that increases airway inflammation.
The injection is recommended for patients over 12 years of age as additional maintenance treatment when usual medications do not prove effective enough.
it was approved for NHS Use by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in 2023.
Severe asthma is usually treated with daily steroid tablets.
However, taking steroids for a long time can cause side effects such as mood changes, stomach problems or weight gain, as well as developing problems such as steroid-induced diabetes or osteoporosis over time.
A new trial, known as WAYFINDER, led by King’s College London involved nearly 300 people with severe, uncontrolled asthma on maintenance doses of 5 mg to 40 mg of steroid tablets daily.
Patients were recruited from 11 countries, including the UK, US, France, Germany, Mexico and Spain.
The trial found that treatment with tezepelumab helped 90 percent of patients reduce their daily steroid doses.
More than half of the people who received the injections were able to stop taking daily steroids completely after 12 months.
Meanwhile, two-thirds of patients stopped having asthma attacks, which was seen within two weeks of the trial and lasted for the duration of the year-long study.
Professor David Jackson, respiratory medicine specialist at King’s College London and clinical lead for asthma services at Guy’s and Royal Brompton hospitals, said: “The Wayfinder study is an important step forward for patients with the most severe forms of asthma, who require daily oral steroids to achieve appropriate disease control.
“In this international, multi-center clinical trial of more than 300 patients, the NICE-approved asthma treatment tezepelumab, a biologic therapy that targets asthma-related inflammation but without all the side effects of steroids, was able to allow most patients to reduce their steroids to a lower dose, while more than half were able to stop their steroids altogether.
“Since tezepelumab also suppresses allergy-related symptoms and improves chronic rhinosinusitis, the results are particularly exciting for patients with severe asthma who suffer from both upper and lower airway symptoms.”
Commenting on the study, Dr Samantha Walker, director of research and innovation at Asthma + Lung UK, said: “This is an incredibly exciting development for the future of asthma care that could change the lives of people with severe asthma.
“It is important that research into new types of treatments continues, but we know that current funding for lung health research is on life support, despite lung conditions remaining the third biggest cause of death in the UK.
“Studies like this show the positive impact that research may have on providing potentially life-changing treatments for people with asthma and other lung conditions.”
The findings of the Wayfinder trial have been published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine and will be presented at the British Thoracic Society Winter Meeting 2025 on Thursday.