Ake­bia touts da­ta for two PhI­II stud­ies, set­ting up show­down with As­traZeneca, Fi­bro­Gen

Three months af­ter their com­mer­cial part­ner Vi­for dropped $100 mil­lion on a pri­or­i­ty re­view vouch­er for their ex­per­i­men­tal ane­mia drug, Ake­bia tout­ed the re­sults from a pair of Phase III tri­als they say could help bring reg­u­la­to­ry ap­proval.

The da­ta are for one of two ex­per­i­men­tal pills — the oth­er com­ing from As­traZeneca and Fi­bro­Gen — that could soon re­place the J&J and Am­gen in­jecta­bles that have been used to treat ane­mia in chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease pa­tients for much of the last 3 decades. Al­though long-run­ning block­busters, the old­er drugs come with dan­ger­ous po­ten­tial side ef­fects — in­clud­ing for car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease and stroke — and dos­ing sched­ules the biotechs hope to im­prove on. That com­bi­na­tion of up­grades could al­so make the drug suit­able for mil­lions of pa­tients with ear­li­er stage kid­ney dis­ease.

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