BEAT Severe Asthma

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Beyond Allergic Th2 Severe Asthma

  • IRAS ID

    247350

  • Contact name

    Salman Siddiqui

  • Contact email

    ss338@leicester.ac.uk

  • Eudract number

    2019-003013-34

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    2 years, 8 months, 29 days

  • Research summary

    This is a platform trial with two parallel group, randomised double blind, placebo controlled, cohorts in participants with severe asthma.
    We will work with severe asthma specialist centres in the UK to identify patients who experience frequent severe asthma attacks (2 or more per year). We will take a blood test that measures blood eosinophil levels (a type of blood cell associated with inflammation) to identify two important sub-types of severe asthma. The first of interest to us is called “T2-HIGH” severe asthma and might be driven by high numbers of eosinophils in the blood that then move to the airways in the lungs and may cause asthma attacks. The second is called “T2-LOW” severe asthma and might be caused by bacteria living in the lungs and how they work with the immune cells. Once we have identified patients in the T2-LOW sub-type group we will test whether a simple, antibiotic (doxycycline) can reduce asthma attacks by changing the bacteria present in the lungs. This will help to identify the right patients to give “long-term” antibiotics to, and to see whether the bacteria that live in the lungs might be responsible for causing asthma attacks. If we find out that targeting certain bacteria that live in the lung reduces asthma attacks, this could pave the way for a future trial evaluating other types of interventions such as probiotics. The patients in the T2-HIGH sub-type will test a new oral tablet called dexpramipexole, which lowers the number of eosinophils in the blood by stopping them growing in the person’s bone marrow (the part of the body that produces new blood cells). We want to see if this treatment will be effective in reducing asthma attacks in this sub-type.

  • REC name

    East Midlands - Leicester South Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    20/EM/0015

  • Date of REC Opinion

    2 Mar 2020

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion