Following their recent assessment, to which Kidney Care UK made a patient group submission, the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has accepted the medicine budesonide (Kinpeygo®) for use by NHS Scotland for treating adults with IgA nephropathy (IgAN), a rare kidney condition.
Although not a cure, the hope is that the use of targeted-release budesonide may help many people with IgAN who have slow declining kidney function from ever reaching kidney failure.
It may also mean that those who have the more aggressive type of IgAN may have a slower journey to kidney failure.
Fiona Loud, Policy Director at Kidney Care UK, commented
This is the first time that a treatment for IgA nephropathy has been licensed in Scotland. Excitingly, if combined with the new SLGT2 drugs, the disease progression that people with IgAN have could be very different from those in the past.
Targeted-release budesonide is recommended as an option for treatment for IgAN where there is risk of rapid disease progression in adults who have at least 1g of protein in their urine per day.
Targeted-release budesonide is recommended only if it is an add-on to optimised standard care including the highest tolerated licensed dose of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs), unless those treatments are not recommended for an individual.
We recommend you speak to your clinician if you have any questions about this treatment.