DBV-Technologies’ Viaskin platform offers a new avenue to explore for food allergy sufferers.

Tens of millions of people all over the world cope with the anxiety of food allergies on a daily basis. Some allergies are mild and their symptoms pass quickly. Others can be deadly. In fact, peanut allergies alone cause over a hundred deaths in the USA each year. At the DBV-Technologies website (www.dbv-technologies.com/en), you can find out more about this French-based company’s allergy treatment, currently under development.

The Viaskin platform is being developed to combat milk, peanut and egg allergies
Source: http://www.dbv-technologies.com

Called the Viaskin patch, it comes in several different versions, each specific to a given allergy. For instance, you can click here to see how the Viaskin milk patch works. Like its egg and peanut patch counterparts, the milk patch takes the same basic form (see the photograph below for more details). Its key features include a titanium backing, an adhesive crown and minute quantities of the allergen to which the patient is allergic. This allergen is delivered to the patient’s body through the skin thanks to the condensation chamber created between the patch and the skin which resolubilizes the antigens. Now in liquid form, they can move through the skin and into the Langerhans cells, the body’s most tolerogenic cells.