Nearly 1 in 5 membranous nephropathy patients never achieve remission, and nearly one-third of those that do will relapse.

NEWTON, Mass., May 24, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Membranous nephropathy (MN) is a rare, autoimmune nephropathy characterized by thickening of the glomerular capillary walls. Most patients are diagnosed with an antigen-specific form of MN, with 70% testing positive for PLA2R. Symptoms include proteinuria, low albumin levels, and edema. MN is the most common cause of nephrotic syndrome and when left untreated or poorly managed, complications include:

  • Hypertension
  • Thromboembolic events
  • Cardiovascular events
  • End-stage kidney disease

Although there are no FDA-approved therapies for MN, the treatment approach is relatively standard, with patients receiving a combination of supportive and immunosuppressive therapy. According to REACH Market Research‘s MarketVue® assessment, nephrologists rely on rituximab as the preferred immunosuppressive therapy, reporting that approximately two-thirds of patients achieve some form of remission with rituximab. However, experts REACH spoke to say the time to onset of action and durability of remission with rituximab are less than ideal.

Nephrologist, U.S.: Rituximab works extremely well. I don’t think I’ve had a patient fail rituximab, although I do have patients that don’t achieve complete or durable response to rituximab.

To access REACH’s MarketVue® Report on MN, visit https://reachmr.com or contact us at info@reachmr.com.

Nephrologists interviewed by REACH  desire new therapies that can induce complete and durable remission in the majority of patients, particularly those at high risk for progression to end-stage kidney disease. In MN there is a direct correlation between PLA2R antibody levels and disease severity and progression. Accordingly, nephrologists report frequently measuring antibody titers in PLA2R+ patients to monitor response to treatment, especially in high-risk patients.

Pooja Patel, Analyst at REACH: There is a need for more treatment options, particularly for high-risk and refractory patients. Because auto-antibody levels do correlate well with clinical response as defined by proteinuria, physicians hope that the emerging widespread availability of antibody testing will allow for future therapies to achieve accelerated approval on the basis of this endpoint.

 

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MarketVue® reports are a rare disease focused, fresh alternative to traditionally long and outdated market research reports. MarketVue® reports cover rare disease epidemiology and key market dynamics based on research from key opinion leader interviews, physician surveys, and secondary data.