Vera Therapeutics soars on strong Phase 3 results in rare kidney disease
Arctic Aurora LifeScience and Arctic Aurora Biotech Select holding Vera Therapeutics increased more than 65% on June 2, upon announcing competitive phase 3 clinical data in IgAN, a severe kidney disorder.
In IgA nephropathy or IgAN patients produce immunoglobulins, a type of protein that plays part in the immune system, with a faulty pattern of sugar molecules attached to them. Due to this, the patients’ immune system recognises these immunoglobulins as foreign and B cells start to produce antibodies to eliminate them. These antibodies clamp together with the faulty immunoglobulins and accumulate in the kidney, causing inflammation and declining kidney function. Approximately, 160 000 patients suffer from this debilitating disease in the US alone.
Vera’s drug, atacicept stops B cell activation and antibody production and thus improves the symptoms of the disease. In their recent press release, they announced that atacicept showed a 42% placebo-adjusted decrease in the protein content of urine (proteinuria). In healthy individuals the urine does not contain proteins, so tracking protein levels is an important marker to follow in kidney diseases. This result was notably better than expectations and what the company showed in the phase 2b trial, (33% reduction), which was an important contributor to the recent rally in the stock. These results also imply that atacicept might be able to effectively preserve kidney function (measured by eGFR, the kidney’s filtration rate). The recent data also put Vera in a strong competitive position. The safety of the drug was in line with previous trials. Importantly there were zero serious infections, which could be a risk if one inhibits B cell activation, since they are an important component of our defence system against infections.
These results further strengthened the profile of atacicept, that could reach peak sales of USD 1.5 billion according to analyst estimates.
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