Tunitas Therapeutics is a privately held biopharmaceutical company that is developing novel and precisely targeted protein therapeutics with he potential to dramatically change the lives of allergy sufferers. The company’s therapeutic approach offers the potential for long-lasting treatments with safer, faster efficacy than conventional therapies, since Tunitas’ proteins are capable of altering the natural course of such allergic diseases as food allergies, asthma, rhinitis and atopic dermatitis.

GE2, Tunitas’ most advanced fusion protein, is ready for formal IND-enabling development. It is a direct inhibitor of basophil and mast cell function, the primary cellular mediator of allergic disease; in addition it suppresses IgE production through its interaction with the “low affinity” IgE receptor on B cells. This unique dual mechanism of action positions GE2 to be a game-changing therapeutic approach for patients with moderate to severe asthma uncontrolled with conventional bronchodilators and inhaled corticosteroids and for patients with severe, life-threatening food allergy.

Tunitas is also developing a next-generation immunotherapy platform of fusion proteins that work by a similar mechanism to GE2. These proteins offer the prospect of long-term relief for specific allergic diseases, such as cat and peanut allergies, via a regimen that is expected to be safer, more effective and able to be completed in a fraction of the time of conventional allergy immunotherapy. A cat allergy vaccine is in preclinical development, and Tunitas is currently optimizing a peanut allergy vaccine candidate.