(Reuters) – GlaxoSmithKline Plc said on Friday its anaemia drug for patients with kidney disease succeeded in late-stage experimental trials, marking an important milestone for the British drugmaker as it bolsters its pipeline of new drugs.
The drug, daprodustat, belongs to a new class of medicines that works by copying the body’s response to hypoxia, or low oxygen levels, and boosts production of red blood cells by mimicking the body’s response to high altitude.
GSK said results from five late stage studies showed the drug improved haemoglobin levels in patients who had not received any standard care, and helped maintain the levels in those who did.
Daprodustat was also well-tolerated in both dialysis and non-dialysis patients.
A rival drug roxadustat, developed by AstraZeneca and Fibrogen, works just like GSK’s treatment and won its first approval in China in late 2018, but a panel of experts to U.S. authorities voted against its approval on Thursday.
GSK’s daprodustat is currently approved only in Japan for use in patients with renal anaemia.
Anaemia is a condition in which the number of red blood cells, or haemoglobin concentration within them, is lower than normal, and can commonly affect patients with kidney disease.
(Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
