John Butler, Akebia CEO

Ake­bi­a's ane­mia drug flunked Covid study — but count the bruised biotech 'ex­treme­ly en­cour­aged'

For as long as it’s ex­ist­ed — since 2007 and count­ing — Ake­bia has al­ways billed it­self as a kid­ney dis­ease spe­cial­ist. But as it grap­ples with a cost­ly FDA re­jec­tion of its lead ane­mia drug, the biotech is do­ing what­ev­er it can to stay afloat.

And that could mean hold­ing on­to a Covid-19 pro­gram even af­ter fail­ing a tri­al.

Re­port­ing ini­tial find­ings from a study test­ing vadadu­s­tat, its once-re­ject­ed ane­mia drug, for the pre­ven­tion and treat­ment of acute res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­tress syn­drome in pa­tients with Covid-19 and hy­pox­emia, Ake­bia said the drug failed the pri­ma­ry end­point, as mea­sured by the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of Al­ler­gy and In­fec­tious Dis­ease Or­di­nal Scale.

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