RECOMBINANT OR PURIFIED POLYCLONAL ANTIBODIES FOR TREATING ALLERGY

A pharmaceutical composition for treating allergy is described. The composition comprises as an active ingredient a recombinant polyclonal antibody or a mixture of different monoclonal antibodies capable of reacting with or binding to an allergen together with one or more pharmaceutically acceptable excipients. The composition may be used topically as a solution, dispersion, powder or in the form of microspheres. The polyclonal antibody is preferably a recombinant polyclonal antibody produced by phage display technology. The pairing of specific immunoglobulin variable region light chain and heavy chain maintained from the original polyclonal immune response or selected by panning using the allergen in question is preferably maintained by bulk transfer of the pairs into an expression vector. The allergen may be an allergen of house dust mites, e.g. Dermatophagoides farinae or D.pteronyssimus; dander from cat, dog or horse; tree pollen, e.g. pollen from birch Betula alba, alder, hazel oak, willow, plane, beech, elm, maple, ash and hornbeam; grass pollen, e.g. pollen from timothy grass Phleum pratense, bluegrass Poa pratense, rye grass Lolium perenne, Orchard grass Dactylis glomerata, ragweed Ambrosia artemisiifolia, sweet vernal grass anthoxanthum odoratum, and rye Secale cereale, or fungi (e.g. Alternaria, Aspergillus, Cladosporium and Penicillium).