VIDEO: Upcoming studies on treatments showing potential in glomerular diseases

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There are a number of trials that are really exciting. I mean, maybe I'm less interested so much in the trials as the different agents. So I think when I look back, I'm seeing this in two different ways.

One is slowing down inflammation, and that traditionally we've always done with steroids with lots of toxicity. And I think this may be where these complement blocking agents come in. There's a trade off in blocking complement 'cause if you block lower in the cascade you might not be blocking the entire process, but maybe those agents are a little bit safer. If you block a little bit higher up in the cascade, you might have more toxicity, but more efficacy. So I think this is gonna be very exciting. And those types of agents have been tested all over the place, including for lupus nephritis, IgA again, membranous. So a lot of different diseases that at least for us pathologically and clinically look differently, but mechanistically have some commonalities. So I think this is exciting.

And then the other thing is, I mean, I think stopping inflammation is one thing, but stopping the disease and its traction from the beginning is really exciting. And that again is where these things sort of blocking antibody production. And in some conditions we've been very successful with first generation agents that block CD20 like rituximab, which has been very effective in a number of conditions. But in others it hasn't been quite as effective. And the question is, are there other agents targeting other portions of the antibody production pathways such as plasma cells, in particular CD38 positive plasma cells?

So these may be some of the really exciting areas. It's almost unlistable the number of studies that are coming now because there's just for all of these conditions there's multiple that are really exciting, and we're really looking forward to seeing the results, honestly.