Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.

Pharmaceuticals
December 20, 2016

Akebia Therapeutics and Otsuka Pharmaceutical Announce Collaboration to Develop and Commercialize Vadadustat in the U.S.

Akebia Therapeutics, Inc. and Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. today announced they have entered into a collaboration and license agreement in the U.S. for vadadustat, an oral hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) stabilizer currently in development for the treatment of anemia associated with chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Anemia related to CKD affects an estimated 1.8 million patients in the U.S. and arises from the kidney's failure to produce adequate amounts of erythropoietin, a key hormone stimulating the production of red blood cells.*1 The sales of erythropoiesis stimulating agents (ESAs), the current standard of care, are estimated to be $3.5 billion in the U.S.*2 Left untreated, anemia significantly accelerates patients' overall deterioration of health with increased morbidity and mortality.*3

The companies intend to share development costs for vadadustat and contribute equally to commercialization efforts.

  1. 1Stages 1-4: JAMA 2007 Coresh et al. (Prevalence of CKD in the US). NHANES 1988-94 and 1999-2004. Stage 5: USRDS 2013 report (ESRD). Iseki K and Kohagura. Anemia as a risk factor for chronic kidney disease K. Kidney Int Suppl. 2007;107:S4-9.
  2. 2Global sales of injectable erythropoiesis-stimulating agents as reported in public filings.
  3. 3Culleton B, Manns B, Zhang J, Tonelli M, Klarenbach S, et al. Impact of anemia on hospitalization and mortality in older adults. Blood 2006;107(10):3841-3846. Portolés J, Gorriz J, Rubio E, de Alvaro F, García F, et al. The development of anemia is associated to poor prognosisin NKF/KDOQI stage 3 chronic kidney disease. BMC nephrology 2013;14(1):2.

See the full press release here: https://www.otsuka-us.com/discover/news-and-media

For additional information about Akebia Therapeutics, Inc. see : http://akebia.com/