Patricia Inacio, PhD,  —

Alport syndrome (AS) patients lose specialized kidney cells, called podocytes, 11 times faster than healthy people, according to a new study. The phenomenon seems to underlie disease progression and can potentially be used as a marker for disease progression and response to treatment. The study, “Accelerated podocyte detachment and progressive…

Reata Pharmaceuticals is expecting $115.9 million revenue from the public offering of some of its stock shares, which will support the clinical development of the company’s leading investigational therapy, bardoxolone methyl, for chronic kidney disease (CKD) caused by Alport syndrome. Bardoxolone is being tested in the Phase 2/3 trial, Cardinal (NCT03019185), currently recruiting…

Treatment with the drug erlotinib decreased kidney inflammation in mice with Alport syndrome, although it showed no impact in delaying disease progression. Erlotinib, sold by Genentech under the brand name Tarceva, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2004 to treat certain patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

The protein endothelin-1 was found to be linked to both kidney and ear problems in Alport syndrome, according to a mouse study. Targeting endothelin-1 may be a therapeutic approach for the disease, and could prevent hearing loss. The study, “Endothelin-1 mediated induction of extracellular matrix genes in strial marginal cells underlies…

People with the autosomal dominant variant of Alport syndrome can also experience severe symptoms, and may be more prevalent than previously thought, researchers reported. The study, “Study of the True Clinical Progression of Autosomal Dominant Alport Syndrome in a European Population,” was published in the online journal Kidney and Blood Pressure…