Empowered Patient Podcast Innovation and Developments in Treating Rare Kidney Disease with Dr. Jula Inrig Travere Therapeutics
Dr. Jula Inrig is the Chief Medical Officer of Travere Therapeutics and is eager to find innovative treatments for rare kidney diseases, which can be challenging to diagnose and have limited therapeutic options. In clinical trials, their lead candidate, sparsentan, reduces proteinuria significantly in patients with IgA Nephropathy and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). Travere is working with the U.S. Preventive Task Force to encourage earlier diagnosis and screening for these often silent diseases.
Jula explains, "We've mapped out a path to get therapies approved for trying to avoid really what is one of the most detrimental complications of kidney disease, which is kidney failure, where you essentially wind up on dialysis. This is a treatment option where patients need to go into a clinic and be hooked up to a machine which cleans their blood three times a week. Or the other option is transplantation. One of the things that we have worked on is a molecule called sparsentan to try and avoid kidney failure."
"Sparsentan is an investigational product candidate. It is a single molecule that doesn't suppress the immune system, which I think for a lot of our patients that's very important. It blocks two hormones that are in the path of causing damage within the kidney. What we have found with sparsentan is it reduces the pressure within the kidney, and it causes some remodeling within the kidney that reduces leakage of protein. When you leak protein within your kidney, that causes the kidney to then not clear toxins and then ultimately to progress faster causing kidney failure."
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