UKidney Nephrology News and Insights

Top-line results for the SAVOR trial were announced this week in which Saxagliptin (Onglyza, Bristol-Myers Squibb/AstraZeneca) failed to demonstrate superiority over placebo in reducing a composite end point of cardiovascular death, nonfatal MI, or nonfatal ischemic stroke when added to usual care in patients with type 2 diabetes with either a history of established CVD or multiple CVD risk factors.  While the trial did demonstrate non-inferiority from a cardiovascular safety perspective, it failed to show any efficacy advantage. As reported originally on theheart.org:

Princeton, NJ and Wilmington, DE - The SAVOR-TIMI 53 trial has failed to demonstrate the superiority ofsaxagliptin (Onglyza, Bristol-Myers Squibb/AstraZeneca) over placebo in reducing a composite end point of cardiovascular death, nonfatal MI, or nonfatal ischemic stroke when added to usual care in patients with type 2 diabetes with either a history of established CVD or multiple CVD risk factors [1].

The trial sponsors, Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca, announced the top-line results from the trial early this morning. The full findings will be presented September 2, 2013 at the European Society of Cardiology(ESC) 2013 Congress. The trial did meet its "primary safety objective of noninferiority" vs placebo, a joint statement from the companies reads. SAVOR-TIMI-53 is part of an ESC hot-line session dedicated to risk factors and diabetes. The full schedule of ESC 2013 hot lines was published on the ESC website earlier this week.

Saxagliptin is a dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor approved in the US, Canada, Europe, and elsewhere as an adjunct to diet and exercise to improve glycemic control in adults with type 2 diabetes. Other, nonrandomized analyses had raised hopes that this class of drugs might have a protective effect on the vasculature of diabetes patients.

Saxagliptin was the first new diabetes drug to receive FDA approval after the issuance of new agency guidelines in July 2009, requiring companies to perform CV-outcomes studies with new diabetes drugs. The drug's clinical development program had been completed before the guidance, but because of the new rule, the company launched SAVOR-TIMI 53. The four-year-long trial had a target enrollment of 16 500 patients, and principal investigators for the trial are Dr Itamar Raz (Hadassah Medical Organization, Jerusalem, Israel) and Dr Deepak Bhatt (Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA).

Some very disappointing news released today, as seen on Reuters:

Oct 18 (Reuters) - Abbott Laboratories Inc said its partner Reata Pharmaceuticals was discontinuing a late-stage trial of their potential blockbuster treatment for chronic kidney disease and diabetes based on safety concerns raised by an independent safety committee. The news for bardoxolone represents a major setback for Abbott just months before the planned Jan. 1 spinoff of its branded prescription drugs into a separate publicly traded company called AbbVie. Without the high-profile drug, Wall Street concerns about AbbVie's dependence on Abbott's $8 billion-a-year rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira could intensify. An independent data monitoring committee found excess serious adverse events and mortality in patients taking the oral anti-inflammatory drug, Abbott said in a regulatory filing.

Regulators were notified of the decision, and study participants were being informed, the company said.

In this week's New England Journal of Medicine, Pergola et al report the results of a phase 2 randomized trial of an antioxidant inflammation modulator, bardoxolone, in patients with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease (CKD). Over a period of 52 weeks, 227 adults with CKD (defined as an estimated glomerular filtration rate [GFR] of 20 to 45 ml per minute per 1.73 m2 of body-surface area) were randomized in a 1:1:1:1 ratio to receive placebo or bardoxolone methyl at a target dose of 25, 75, or 150 mg once daily. Primary outcome was a change from baseline in the estimated GFR with bardoxolone, as compared with placebo, at 24 weeks; a secondary outcome was the change at 52 weeks. The results were quite surprising.

The long awaited ROADMAP trial was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. This randomized controlled trial enrolled 4,447 patients to determine whether treatment with the angiotensin receptor blocker olmesartan could delay or prevent microalbuminuria.

In the study, blood pressure was targeted at less than 130/80 mmHg, yet patients randomized to the ARB group had a lower clinic blood-pressure by 3.1/1.9 overall. The time to onset of microalbuminuria was increased by 23% in the olmesartan group [hazard ratio for the onset of microalbuminuria 0.77; 95% confidence interval, 0.632 0.94; P=0.01]. However surprisingly, there was fewer cardiovascular deaths in the placebo group [3 versus 15, P=0.01].

The Planet 1 and 2 studies are not widely publicized. However, they do provide some eye-opening information.

According to these studies, in patients with diabetes and intact renal function, there was a significant decline in renal function and failure to reduce urinary protein in patients randomized to rosuvastatin but not atorvastatin. Furthermore, there were more renal events in the rosuvastatin group (doubling of serum creatinine and episodes of acute renal failure).

These results are very surprising and difficult to rationalize at face value. Nevertheless, the design of the trials appears sound and the number of patients adequate.

Dr. Marecllo Tonelli from the University of Alberta walks us through this data in his outstanding presentation seen here on UKidney