VIDEO: ARS Pharma presents four epinephrine studies at ACAAI Annual Meeting

ANAHEIM, Calif. — ARS Pharma, which is developing the neffy nasal spray as an alternative to epinephrine injections for anaphylaxis, presented four studies at the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Annual Scientific Meeting.

“I dealt with thousands of needles in my career. But it is still painful when I see my kids being injected,” Sarina Tanimoto, MD, MBA, cofounder and chief medical officer of ARS Pharma, told Healio as she summarized the company’s presentations.

“So, it is ARS’s priority to make neffy available for pediatric patients,” she said.

First, researchers found a possible negative relationship between body weight and epinephrine absorption, suggesting that needle length may have an effect.

Next, an assessment of pharmacokinetic profiles found that children and adults had similar profiles, indicating that neffy will have similar performance in both populations.

A third study revealed that colds and the flu do not have any meaningful effect on how well the body absorbs epinephrine administered via neffy.

In the fourth study, researchers investigated the physiology of allergic rhinitis.

“People may think that allergic rhinitis is just a local disease but, actually, our data suggested that it may not just be local but systemic,” Tanimoto said.

Based on the increased epinephrine concentrations found with allergic rhinitis, Tanimoto said, there may be some clinical vasodilation as well, with epinephrine compensating for blood pressure changes.

“That is helpful for us to interpret our data, but not only that, we believe that kind of understanding helps advance the science in the allergic community that we serve,” Tanimoto said.