Nestlé Health Sciences — the multinational food company’s Pharma division — is throwing in the towel on its peanut allergy drug, announcing this week that it would be selling the treatment.
For an undisclosed price, Nestlé has handed over the drug, branded Palforzia to Stallergenes Greer, a pharma company focused on allergy medications.
In 2020, already owning 25% of the company, Nestlé paid $2 billion for the remaining stakes in Aimmune Therapeutics. The main asset of the acquisition was Palforzia, an oral immunotherapy treatment and the first drug to ever win approval for peanut allergies in patients aged 4 to 17.
Peanut allergies affect approximately 2% of the general population of Western nations. Palforzia was developed to gradually reduce peanut sensitivities by exposing patients to refined versions of peanut flour — but it necessitates frequent doctors visits and was launched at the start of the pandemic. In 2022, at an investor seminar, Nestlé confessed its plans to explore explore strategic options for the drug, after adoption by patients and doctors was slower than expected.
