IgA Nephropathy: An Overview Of The Rare Autoimmune Kidney Disease
IgA Nephropathy is tough to diagnose due to its nature. It occurs mostly in a minor, heterogeneous, and widely scattered set of patients. Thus, the replication, design, and study enrollment of IgA Nephropathy in clinical trials is filled with complications. As a result, substantial losses have to be sustained because of a general delay in access to new treatments and loss of valuable time.
The short blog here discusses what IgA Nephropathy is and the current understanding of the disease.
IgA Nephropathy, also known by the name Berger’s disease, is a rare autoimmune disorder that disturbs a normally functioning kidney. Impairment of small blood vessels that filter blood in the kidneys takes place. This happens because of an aberrant protein that damages the glomerulus (filtering units) present inside the kidneys, causing the development of IgA Nephropathy.
IgA Nephropathy has no existing disease-specific treatment. Presently, only the progression of the disorder can be controlled by decelerating it with the help of particular medications. IgA Nephropathy treatment incorporates the use of different types of immune-suppressing or immunosuppressant medicines having steroids as their constituent, along with ARBs (angiotensin-receptor blockers) and ACE inhibitors (Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors).
IgA Nephropathy symptoms become obvious with the progression of the disorder. The patients do not exhibit any signs in the early stages of the disease, thus helping the disease to go undetected for several years. However, once the symptoms start to appear, it is Hematuria (blood in the urine), which is the most common symptom to be observed. Other IgA Nephropathy symptoms can include flank pain (a type of pain experienced on the sides of the back), swelling in the ankles, and high blood pressure. In incidences of rapidly progressing IgA Nephropathy, the person affected may display end-stage renal disease symptoms as well.
There are some companies that take the lead for developing novel therapies related to the IgAN treatment market. Some of these include Omeros, Chinook Therapeutics Inc., Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Calliditas Therapeutics, Travere Therapeutics, and others.
The upcoming IgA Nephropathy market seems to be optimistic with an emergence of IgAN therapies such as Atrasentan (Chinook Therapeutics Inc.), Iptacopan (Novartis Pharmaceuticals), Narsoplimab (Omeros), Nefecon (Calliditas Therapeutics), Sparsentan (Travere Therapeutics), among others.
Resources: IgA Nephropathy Treatment Market, by DelveInsight.
