New drugs for asthma

Several new drugs are now under development for the treatment of asthma, either as improvements to existing classes of therapy or as novel agents. Amongst bronchodilators, long-acting inhaled beta 2-agonists (salmeterol and formoterol) look very promising and there is also interest in selective phosphodiesterase inhibitors, K+ channel-openers and nitrodilators. There are several new inhaled corticosteroids under development and more selective agents include leukotriene antagonists, 5-lipoxygenase inhibitors, bradykinin and tachykinin antagonists and immunomodulators. In the future, adhesion molecule inhibitors and cytokine inhibitors may be developed.