Hay fever vaccine developer Allergy Therapeutics (AT) is preparing for key US clinical trials, while testing an oral alternative to injected delivery.

AIM-quoted AT, originally bought from Glaxo SmithKline by new management eight years ago, is developing Pollinex Quattro, a range of potential new vaccines derived from a substance called MPL. These are designed to combat the symptoms of allergies, chiefly rhinitis (hay fever), more effectively than anti-histamine treatments with a very low efficacy.

This is seen as a growth market, as allergies steadily increase worldwide, stimulated, it is believed, by urbanisation and even global warming. AT, run by chief executive and ex-financier Keith Carter, already sells successfully into several European markets on a pre-clinical trial 'named patient' basis and next year brings crucial Phase III trials in the USA of Pollinex Quattro's effectiveness against ragweed allergy, widespread across the Pond.

If these go well, Carter says Pollinex Quattro could be launched commercially in the USA in 2009, where he claims there is a market worth sales of some £280 million a year. The product already involves significantly fewer injections and, he maintains, works faster than rivals. If it could be taken by mouth as an alternative to injection, it would be much more user-friendly and become 'a standard general practitioner's product', provided efficacy did not suffer too much.

Allergy Therapeutics lost £1.9 million in the year to last June and turned an interim £2.7 million profit into a £425,000 loss in the six months to December, following hefty increases in research and development spending and administrative costs. Last month the company raised £19 million at £1 and, says Carter, has £30 million in the bank, including a £4 million loan.

Now 110p, valuing the company at £91 million, the shares, buttressed by existing European product sales, could surge if next year's trials are successful.

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Allergy Therapeutics	AIM	£8.2m	10.00p	0.00p
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