Protection before the bite: How a new pill could keep you safe from tick-borne illnesses
Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne illness in the United States. Over 400,000 people are estimated to be treated for it each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
California-based Tarsus Pharmaceuticals is hoping to help protect more people from severe tick-borne illnesses by developing a new pill called TP05.
“TP05 is a tablet that is designed to prevent Lyme disease by killing ticks before ticks can infect us,” said the company’s CEO Dr. Bobby Azamian.
The company recently wrapped up a phase II clinical trial in Boston in which 30 volunteers tested the medication.
Azamian said the results showed the pill was over 90% effective in preventing Lyme disease even until thirty days after exposure.
“The medicine would basically circulate and when the tick bit you, the tick would actually become paralyzed and die before the tick could transmit the Lyme bacteria,” he said.
Azamian explained you’d take the pill the night before you went to a wooded area. He said if you live in an area that is affected year-round then you could take it seasonally.
“Just like a malaria medication you’d take this before you went to the region and it would protect you for a period of weeks, or in this case potentially a period of months, and it would prevent you from getting that parasitic disease,” he said.
Tarsus Pharmaceuticals also created the drug Xdemvy. The eyedrop medication was approved in July 2023 to help treat demodex blepharitis, an eyelid disease caused by mites.
Azamian said it was that research that led to the current development of TP05.
“That allowed us to become experts in antiparasitic medicine and find we can do something similar for the prevention of Lyme disease,” he said.
The company said its next steps will be to contact the FDA to conduct a phase III trial.
Azamian said the company will first seek approval for use in adults before application is considered for kids.
