14 ms·
Launch HN: Wyndly (YC W21) – Allergy relief through at-home oral drops
Hi HN,
I’m Aakash, and I’m a long time HN reader. My cousin Manan and I are excited to share our startup Wyndly (https://www.wyndly.com https://www.wyndly.com) with HN today.
Wyndly is focused on making long-term allergy relief convenient through at-home allergy immunotherapy drops and telemedicine. These personalized oral drops train your immune systems to stop reacting to allergy triggers like pollen, pets, or dust.
Manan is an ear-nose-and-throat surgeon and allergy doctor, and in his physical practice, he’s treated thousands of patients with at-home allergy drops, a form of allergy immunotherapy. During allergy immunotherapy, you gradually introduce your immune system to your allergy triggers. Over time, your immune system learns to tolerate these allergy triggers and stops reacting to them. For patients, this means greatly reduced allergy symptoms and long-term relief [1] without any other medicine for years after patients finish their immunotherapy.
While allergy drops are 80% of allergy immunotherapy in some European countries, in the United States, allergy drops are just 5.9% of allergy immunotherapy prescriptions [2] and are really only available in university hospitals like Johns Hopkins, University of Pittsburgh, and West Virginia University [3] [4] [5].
Part of the reason for their limited availability is physician training, and another part is the health insurance system’s incentives. Most allergy doctors were trained on allergy shots, and prescribe what they are most experienced with. Additionally, health insurance programs incentivize prescribing allergy shots.
In his medical training, Manan trained on both allergy drops and shots. When Manan gave his patients the choice between at-home allergy drops and allergy shots, his patients always chose drops, which are safer, convenient, and don’t require needles [6].
When Covid-19 hit Denver in March 2020, Manan switched all of his allergy drop patients to online care to continue treatment. After shelter-in-place was lifted, his patients continued online care due to the convenience, which told us one thing—patients preferred and were comfortable with telemedicine for allergy care. And that's why we started Wyndly.
We’re trying to make allergy immunotherapy convenient and affordable, so that any one of the 60 million people in America suffering from allergies has the opportunity to get lifelong relief—just like braces straighten your teeth and Lasik fixes your vision.
We’ve done our best to make our patient experience as easy as possible. First, we learn more about you and your allergy history. Then, our medical team creates a personalized treatment plan with treatment sent straight to your door. Most patients notice benefits at 6 months, and some patients have reported allergy symptom relief as early as 6 weeks [7]. Patients lock-in lifelong allergy relief after a few years [1]. Throughout this time, we stay in touch with the patient to work with them towards allergy relief.
Please let us know if you have more questions or feedback. We love talking about the science behind allergy immunotherapy, our treatment model, and what we’re doing. We're happy to answer any questions!
[1] Long-lasting effects of sublingual immunotherapy according to its duration: a 15-year prospective study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20934206/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20934206/
[2] Comparison of allergen immunotherapy practice patterns in the United States and Europe https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20084837/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20084837/
[3] Sublingual Immunotherapy (SLIT) for Allergy Treatment: Johns Hopkins | Q&A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpWomI4iPLY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpWomI4iPLY
[4] Benefits of Sublingual Immunotherapy | UPMC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpP41WQ6pBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpP41WQ6pBc
[5] Sublingual Immunotherapy: An Alternative to Allergy Shots https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THszgnYNM1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THszgnYNM1I
[6] Efficacy and Safety of Subcutaneous and Sublingual Immunotherapy for Allergic Rhinoconjunctivitis and Asthma https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28964530/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28964530/
[7] Clinical improvement after escalation for sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21938688/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21938688/
- unamashana 6y agoCongrats on the launch! I live with two cats and sadly I am allergic to cats. It's not super bad but certainly noticeable. Will your treatment work for people like me?
- ahstilde 6y agoYes, Wyndly at-home allergy drop immunotherapy does help with cat and dog allergies! Many of our patients come to us because of a small baseline allergy that impacts their quality of life.
- tmaly 6y agoAakash, what is the intended age for this product? I am asking because I have two younger children with food allergies.
- ahstilde 6y agoHi! Children as young as 4 can start on allergy drops. However, Wyndly only treats environmental allergies like pollen, pet dander, and dust. We do not treat food allergies. There are a number of promising therapies currently undergoing clinical trials for food allergy oral immunotherapy, and we are optimistically awaiting the results. Here's some trials from the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy & Asthma Research at Stanford University: https://med.stanford.edu/allergyandasthma/clinical-trials.html https://med.stanford.edu/allergyandasthma/clinical-trials.ht...
- morpheuskafka 6y agoOIT (oral immunotherapy) and SLIT (sublingual) is still in a clinical research stage for food allergies; however, a small subset of doctors do currently offer it in their own practice outside of the research setting (see oit101.org). Some of these practitioners do tell patients at some point that they have achieved "sustained unresponsiveness." Most allergists do not yet offer it as there is no standardized protocol for it, it's not considered "standard of care." The first food allergy OIT product, Palforzia, released last year. It's claim to fame (and competitive moat) is the combination of them sponsoring a series of large trial using the same, standardized protocol which now has become part of the drug labeling, so physicians don't have to decide themselves, as well as a exclusive supply agreement for peanut flour that is characterized so each pre-measured capsule has a known amount of protein rather than just a known amount of flour. From what I remember, SCIT (sub-cutaneous allergy shots) have generally not performed very favorably in research for food allergies; they cause too many severe adverse reactions and they are not anyone's favorite anyway.