A twice-yearly injection that could prevent thousands of asthma patients from suffering life-threatening attacks will go on sale in Britain within months.
Trials show the ‘ultra-long-acting’ drug, named depemokimab, can cut hospital admissions by three-quarters (72 per cent) with minimal side-effects.
The injectable therapy, known as a biologic, contain antibodies that dampen inflammation in the lungs and is set to revolutionise the way severe asthma is treated.
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has granted marketing authorisation for the treatment, which is made by the British pharmaceutical giant GSK.
It will now go on sale privately in the first half of 2026, with the drugs watchdog Nice also set decide whether it will be prescribed on the NHS.
Ian Pavord, professor of respiratory medicine at the University of Oxford, who led the trials of depemokimab, compared biologics to a ‘laser-guided missile’.
He told the Sunday Times: ‘They just take out the enemy, whereas the more non-specific anti-inflammatory drugs — particularly steroids — are more like a cluster bomb.
‘They have a lot of off-target effects that we don’t want.
Depemokimab, which will be sold under the brand name Exdensur, only needs to be taken every six months
‘A third of these patients will achieve complete remission of their asthma on biologics, from being in the depths of despair.’
Biologics could prove a life-saver for patients with severe, uncontrollable asthma, for whom inhalers are insufficient to control their condition.
These patients were previously treated with high-dose steroids whose side-effects include mood changes, weight gain, high blood sugar and osteoporosis.
Depemokimab, which will be sold under the brand name Exdensur, only needs to be taken every six months, compared with existing biologic asthma treatments, which are taken every two to eight weeks.
Dame Emma Walmsley, chief executive of GSK, said: ‘It’s terrifying as a patient, or parent of a patient, to be hospitalised with an asthma attack.
‘Now we have the world’s first six-monthly treatment for asthma approved.
‘And our research shows this medicine will reduce the kind of attacks that cause hospitalisation, the really properly scary ones.’
About 6 million people in England have asthma, of which 58,000 adults are estimated to have the uncontrolled severe asthma that makes them eligible for biologic treatments.
Dame Emma Walmsley, chief executive of GSK
However, only about 21,000 get the drugs, according to a recent study led by Cambridge University.
Professor Pavord said biologics have been ‘a real UK success story’, pointing out that much of their clinical development has happened in Britain.
Kaivan Khavandi, head of respiratory, immunology and inflammation research and development at GSK, said the twice-yearly dosing would benefit patients with a fear of needles, reduce the time they need to take off work for appointments and free-up NHS resources.
Expanding the gaps between the treatment of any drug is only possible if it can last in the body for longer.
That is usually done by increasing the dose but it comes with a risk of additional toxicity and side-effects.
GSK scientists in Stevenage, who developed the treatment, managed to ensure it could last in the body for six months without increasing side-effects by making two tweaks to the antibody’s structure.
Nick Hopkinson, medical director of the charity Asthma + Lung UK and professor of respiratory medicine at Imperial College London, said: ‘This is an important step forward.
‘Biologic therapies are becoming more normal and this means patients can get along with their lives without needing regular treatment.’
David Jackson, professor of respiratory medicine at King’s College London, who worked on the depemokimab trial, said the number of patients who benefit from the new drug will depend on the price GSK sets for it, which the company will announce in the coming weeks.
This is because Nice, which rations NHS drugs, has set the threshold for eligibility for most biologics as at least three severe attacks in a year.
‘One of the things that we as an asthma community are hoping for is that GSK come in cheap enough to allow for example that bar to be dropped to two exacerbations per year rather than three,’ he added.
