UKidney Nephrology News and Insights

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].

In the wake of the ONTARGET study, there is a movement away from using ACE and ARBs in combination for hypertension or general vascular protection. However, the combination is still an option for patients with heart failure where the it has been shown to reduce hospitalization. There remains a question whether the combination can reduce the rate of progression in diabetic nephropathy and other kidney diseases. While the ONTARGET study did include a relatetively small number of patients with nephropathy, it was not designed or powered to show a difference in renal outcomes. A new study, the VA-NEPHRON D, is currently underway to examine the effect of lisinopril plus losartan versus lisinopril plus placebo on the progression of chronic kidney disease. A copy of this study design can be found here. This study should shed light on the role of this medication combination in a disease state with a large unmet therapeutic need.

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