The Future of IgA Nephropathy: Why Biomarkers Matter

Announcer:
You’re listening to On the Frontlines of IgAN on ReachMD. On this episode, we’ll discuss the need for immunoglobulin A Nephropathy, or IgAN, biomarkers with Dr. Jonathan Barratt. He’s the Mayer Professor of Renal Medicine at the College of Life Sciences University of Leicester, while also serving as a committee member for the International IgA Nephropathy Network. Here’s Dr. Barratt now.

Dr. Barratt:
I think over the next 5 to 10 years, the future of IgA nephropathy treatment will be in combination treatments in terms of finding the optimum combination therapy for the patient and ensuring that we control and prevent the production of that pathogenic IgA and stop kidney failure, but to do that we’re likely to need different combinations for different patients because, as we all know, IgA nephropathy is quite a heterogeneous disease. And so in addition to having the drugs we can actually combine, which is where we’re getting to, we desperately need biomarkers in the blood or the urine that help us choose which is the right therapy for the right patient at the right time. And we need biomarkers to allow us to monitor the response to these new treatments because we have to accept not all patients are going to respond to every treatment, and we need to think about biomarkers that help us identify those people who are responding so we can keep giving them those treatments and biomarkers that tell us a patient is really just not responding to this particular drug; therefore, we should stop it quickly and try a new therapy. So I think we’re getting there with the drugs. That’s really exciting. We need to think much more carefully about the combinations we’re going to use. But what we desperately need and haven’t made much headway in at the moment are biomarkers that allow us to select the right drug or drug combination for the right patient at the right time.

Announcer:
That was Dr. Jonathan Barratt talking about the need for IgA nephropathy biomarkers. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit On the Frontlines of IgAN on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!