Abbott buys new medicine to help prevent AKI

Abbott takes on one of the many challenges Doctors face when dealing with AKI,  new medicine helps prevent AKI stemming from cardiac surgery

http://www.renalbusiness.com/news/2012/05/abbott-pays-cash-for-aki-drug.aspx” rel=”nofollow”

Quote:

“ABBOTT PARK, Ill.—Still wheeling and dealing on the road up to its spinoff this year, the drug arm of Abbott Laboratories has snagged Action Pharma’s Phase IIb program for acute kidney injury (AKI) with a one-time payment of $110 million in cash.

The deal hits Abbott’s sweet spot, adding an advanced drug program to the pipeline which can neatly complement other late-stage therapies.

The cash deal delivers AP214, in development to prevent AKI associated with major cardiac surgery. The treatment is a hormone analogue that “targets both systemic inflammation and apoptosis caused by hypoxia” which is a crimp in blood flow that can occur during surgery. Last fall Action Pharma reported that it had achieved positive Phase IIb results. Abbott will now mount another Phase IIb study, planned for later in the year.

“Clinical experience with AP214 in cardiac surgery patients suggests that it has the potential to be the first compound specifically approved to prevent acute kidney injury, a long-standing unmet need in the medical community,” said John Leonard, Abbott’s senior vice president, pharmaceuticals, research and development. “This acquisition complements and broadens Abbott’s late-stage renal care pipeline and builds on our existing experience in treating kidney disease.”

Abbott is already in an ambitious Phase III study of bardoxolone, a chronic kidney disease drug it partnered on with Reata Pharmaceuticals. An in-house program for atrasentan is being studied in a Phase IIb trial in patients with diabetic kidney disease.”

unquote:

Abbott shows interest in this area for one reason only – the more therapies the more tests needs to be carried out. The more test – the more machines – especially if they can convince BioPorto to grant them a license (one way or another)  Even when we consider the rather high number of 200 million potential test (year-over-year) that BioPorto has now (after our presentation here on Medicoinvestor 🙂 ) started using in their own material – it is clear to me – that the number needs to be raised significantly when more effective therapies are being launched.

So – even if the most pessimistic readers focus on the fact that the medicine should ultimately prevent AKI – there is no indication whatsoever that this should have a negative effect on the number of tests carried out – au contraire – doctors will want to test is AKI is developping/onsetting before using the probably unbelievably expensive therapy

Anyways – as we all know now – things take time – and in the world of medicine/medico things takes extraordinarily long time