VIDEO: Unmet needs in management of hyperphosphatemia

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There is a great unmet need because with the tools we have today, we're unable to achieve sustained control of phosphorous when kidney function is low and patients are on dialysis. And while on any given day, you might have 40% of the patients that are out of range, out of the desired target range, that's not the same patient every day. So, most patients go in and out of range throughout their course on dialysis. And so, really, you only have perhaps 10% or so of the patients on dialysis can have their phosphorus in their desired range for an entire year. And we need to do better with that. We need better agents that can control the phosphorus on a long-term basis, and let us achieve the sustained control of phosphorous. And the other unmet need, and that is that one can even argue about the level of hyperphosphatemia that's acceptable. We kind of target the levels of phosphorous to something that can be achieved with the agents we have available and the strategies that we have available. But even those targets, which are the kind of practice guidelines, leave the phosphorus way above normal. And we don't really know at this stage that if you could get phosphorus values down to the normal range, would that be associated with better outcomes? And so, we're already just targeting a level that's already quite high, but it's a target really that says that's the best we can do right now with the tools that we have. So I think we need to understand better. We need better agents to get it to a normal level, and we need to be able to show that if you can get it to a normal level and keep it there, that we can achieve better outcomes for the patients. So we're not in a good place in terms of controlling hyperphosphatemia with the tools we have available today.