As per a recent Canadian Study, an experimental drug known as Mepolizumab or Bosatria, can help in preventing severe asthma attacks in patients who display no or fewer benefits when treated with inhaled steroid therapy.

Paul O’Byrne, a physician at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., who co-authored the Canadian study, remarked that patients with eosinophil-based asthma responded well to inhaled steroid therapy during the study processes.

From Sciencenews.org:

An experimental drug called mepolizumab can prevent severe asthma attacks in people with an uncommon form of the disease that responds poorly to standard steroid medications, researchers report in two studies in the March 5 New England Journal of Medicine.

Scientists from Britain and Canada also find that a simple test of sputum (coughed up matter) can reveal which patients would most likely benefit from mepolizumab. Thus the drug might help some people with asthma reduce the use of steroids such as prednisone, which have side effects, says Ian Pavord, a pulmonologist at Glenfield Hospital and University of Leicester in England and coauthor of one of the studies.

Asthma is a chronic disease in which the airways become inflamed, constricted, scarred and laden with mucus. The wheezing and shortness of breath that asthma causes — and the frightening struggle for air felt in a severe asthma attack — can be brought on by allergens, fumes, stress and even exercise or cold air.

An immune system overreaction to these triggers underlies the disease. Mepolizumab quells the reaction by neutralizing the effect of interleukin-5, an immune protein that activates circulating immune cells called eosinophils and recruits new ones from nascent cells in the bone marrow. The normally trustworthy eosinophils run amok in 50 to 60 percent of people with asthma.

Fortunately, most people with eosinophil-based asthma respond well to steroid treatment delivered by inhalers, says Paul O’Byrne, a physician at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., who coauthored the Canadian study.

Mepolizumab has a unique ability to quell an immune system overreaction by neutralizing the effect of an immune protein, known as interleukin-5. This immune protein can activate the circulating immune cells (eosinophils) besides recruiting new immune cells from the nascent cells in the bone marrow.

Medical-guided usage of this experimental drug can help in the prevention of emergency room visits but it may be able to completely eliminate all emergency asthma attacks.

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