If you have a dog or cat, you may have given your pet flavored chewable tablets to prevent ticks. What if you could take a similar drug to protect yourself from infection? lyme disease?
Tarsus Pharmaceuticals is developing a pill for humans that can protect against tick-borne diseases for weeks at a time. This tablet does not contain any delicious flavorings. February, Irvine, Calif.-based biotechnology company Announces results from small early-stage trial This drug can kill ticks in humans 24 hours after taking it, and its effects have been shown to last up to 30 days.
“What we envision is something that protects you before a tick bites you,” says Tarsus CEO Bobby Azamian.
Lyme disease is a rapidly growing problem in the United States, with approximately 476,000 people reported to be diagnosed with and treated for Lyme disease each year. Latest data From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although this number is likely an overestimate, as many patients receive treatment after tick bites even though they have no confirmed infection, it does highlight the burden of Lyme disease on the healthcare system. According to researchers at the CDC and Yale University. Reaching approximately $1 billion annually.
disease is caused by bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, is transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected tick. In most cases, it takes about 36 to 48 hours after the tick attaches itself for the bacteria to spread. Symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, and a characteristic bull’s-eye skin rash.
There is no commercially available vaccine for Lyme disease, so current prevention methods include using insect repellents such as DEET and permethrin, and wearing closed shoes, long pants, and long sleeves in tick-infested areas. It is included.
“Despite being told to test for ticks, use DEET, and soak our clothes with permethrin, the incidence of tick-borne diseases remains low,” said Paul Owerter, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. “We’re seeing it increase every year,” he said. A medical scientist who studies Lyme disease.
More effective treatment strategies would be welcome, Auwaerter said, especially since Lyme disease can sometimes cause serious health problems. Antibiotics are usually effective if taken early, but are ineffective in about 5 to 10 percent of patients. Symptoms may last longer For weeks or months. If left untreated, the infection can spread to the joints and cause arthritis. It can also settle in the heart and nervous system, causing persistent fatigue, numbness, and weakness.
The experimental drug Tarsus Pharmaceuticals is testing is a formulation of rotilaner, a drug that paralyzes and kills parasites by interfering with the transmission of signals between nerve cells. Rotilaner is already approved as a veterinary drug under the trade name Credelio for the treatment of fleas and ticks in dogs and cats.
“Our animals have better options for tick prevention than we do,” says Linden Hu, a professor of immunology at Tufts Medical School who led the Tarsus trial. “There are many drugs and vaccines available for dogs and cats, but we don’t have any.”
Tarsus first developed rotilaner for human use as an eye drop to treat blepharitis, or inflammation of the eyelids, caused by small mites. That drug, Xdemvy, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in July 2023. This drug stuns and kills the mites present on the eyelids. Azamian and his team came up with the idea of testing it on human ticks. The oral medication enters the bloodstream and is passed on to the tick when it bites and begins sucking blood.
“Many drugs are tested on animals, but very few drugs are commercialized for animals and then used in humans,” Azamian says.
In the Phase II trial, 31 healthy adults took either low or high doses of Tarsus pills, or a placebo. The researchers then placed sterile ticks on participants’ arms and measured how many died after 24 hours. They also observed the death of the mites 30 days after administering a single dose of the tablet. On day 1, 97 percent of the ticks in the high-dose group and 92 percent of the ticks in the low-dose group were dead, compared to just 5 percent of the ticks in the placebo group. After one month, both doses of the tablets killed about 90% of the mites. The company reported no serious adverse events associated with the pill, and no participants dropped out due to side effects.
“The important thing is that it killed the mites very quickly,” Hu said. “And the effects lasted for a long time.”
The fact that this drug targets ticks rather than the bacteria that causes Lyme disease means that it can prevent the bacteria that causes Lyme disease. Other tick-borne diseases Diseases that are prevalent in the United States, such as babesiosis and anaplasmosis. Thanks to climate change and an exploding deer population, ticks are expanding their range and transmitting diseases.
Tarsus has not proven that its pills can actually prevent Lyme disease. To do so, the drug would need to be tested on hundreds of people at high risk of contracting the disease. But Hu is cautiously optimistic. “This drug is potentially a pre-exposure prophylaxis drug and we don’t need to think about it.”
Azamian imagines people ingesting it before going on a hiking or camping trip, or before heading out to an area where ticks are infested.
“There are some people who have really severe symptoms that persist after Lyme disease, so preventing that would be a great opportunity,” Auwater says.
This story was originally wired.com.
