Kidney diseases are a global public health problem that affects over 200 million people worldwide. It is estimated that about 30 million adults in the United States have Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and most are undiagnosed. In addition, CKD represents the ninth leading cause of death in the United States. Kidney diseases also represent great socioeconomical cost worldwide. In the United States, treating Medicare beneficiaries with CKD costed over $79 billion, and treating people with End Stage Kidney Disease (ESKD) costed an additional $35 billion in 2016. To date, there is no cure for CKD.
CKD is accompanied by altered pathogenic gut bacteria, inflammation, and accumulation of uremic toxins in the blood. These blood uremic toxins can diffuse passively into the bowel. Scientific research has shown that probiotic bacteria could metabolize various uremic toxins such as urea, uric acid and creatinine. In addition, by supplementing the gut microbiome with probiotic bacteria, it is possible to metabolize the nitrogenous waste products and other toxins which diffuse into the gut, and thus lower levels of inflammation and blood uremic toxins.
KT-301 (formerly US-APR2020) is a probiotic formulation of bacteria intended to restore the gut bacteria balance to improve the removal of uremic toxins in the bowel in CKD patients.
This is an open label, multicenter, rollover extension study to provide KT-301 to subjects who were previously enrolled into and completed the placebo-controlled study, US-APR2020-01. Subjects will roll over to the long-term extension study at the last visit of the US-APR-2020-01 study. All subjects who completed the US-APR2020-01 study will be eligible to enroll in this study.
The purpose of this open-label study is to evaluate the long-term safety and efficacy of the live biotherapeutic product, KT-301, in the management of patients with CKD Stage IV.
