Science

An entirely new approach to address diabetic nephropathy

Vascular Pharmaceuticals is working to address the complications of diabetes by changing the way the disease impacts the body. Diabetic nephropathy occurs in diabetes patients when the high sugar levels in their blood results in changes in the way the body’s cells interact, or bind with each other. In particular, diabetes patients have cell receptors (the part of the cell responsible for communication) that sometimes send signals for over activation, causing damage to the kidneys.

VPI-2960B represents an entirely new approach to addressing the issue of diabetic nephropathy by down regulating a specific cell surface receptor present on three key cell types involved with maintaining effective kidney filtration function. This receptor is stimulated when a patient has high blood sugar and engages in abnormal signaling leading to cell damage in the nephron, the key filtering unit of the kidney. Down regulating the receptor stops the abnormal signaling and may prevent, or even reverse, the underlying cellular damage triggered by diabetes. The clinical profile of VPI-2690B is currently being tested in a Phase 2 clinical trial.