The world’s largest dialysis company is seeking out kidney disease patients long before they need the most acute form of care as it plans for growth of new drugs that attack the condition’s causes early on.
For decades, Germany's Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) (FMEG.DE) has been the biggest player in the $50 billion U.S. market providing dialysis and related machines that help filter out blood toxins for people whose kidneys have failed to function.
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6 minute readOctober 5, 20226:49 AM PDTLast Updated 2 days ago
Fresenius taps pre-dialysis kidney care as drugs promise treatment change
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Diabetes drug Farxiga (dapagliflozin) is displayed at a pharmacy in Provo, Utah, U.S. May 28, 2020. REUTERS/George Frey/File Photo
Summary
Companies
New diabetes drugs also shown to slow kidney decline
Dialysis company FMC sees impact on its grow outlook
Fresenius Medical in push into earlier stages of kidney disease
Separate <a href="/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/new-treatments-hold-promise-slowing-kidney-damage-2022-10-05/">Reuters factbox gives details of new drugs</a>
FRANKFURT, Oct 5 (Reuters) - The world’s largest dialysis company is seeking out kidney disease patients long before they need the most acute form of care as it plans for growth of new drugs that attack the condition’s causes early on.
For decades, Germany's Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) (FMEG.DE) has been the biggest player in the $50 billion U.S. market providing dialysis and related machines that help filter out blood toxins for people whose kidneys have failed to function.
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The company’s 17.6 billion euros ($17.6 billion) in annual revenue has been sustained for decades by high rates of obesity and diabetes, which contribute to kidney damage.
But the dialysis market is changing as new medications have been shown to dramatically improve the conditions that lead to kidney failure.
FMC anticipates that the introduction of these drugs could be a drag on its patient population growth for at least some years. To diversify its revenue base it is pushing to expand beyond its core dialysis business into the care of earlier stage kidney disease.
The new drugs include AstraZeneca's (AZN.L) Farxiga diabetes pill that also delivers benefits for non-diabetics as an approved treatment to slow chronic kidney disease (CKD).
Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly's (LLY.N) Jardiance diabetes drug is expected to be used for the same purpose, while Novo Nordisk's (NOVOb.CO) Wegovy injection offers a new treatment option for obesity. Other similar new treatments such as Eli Lilly’s (LLY.N) Mounjaro are also expected to offer new weight loss options.
They all add pressure to the dialysis industry which faces rising costs and a temporary shrinking of its patient pool, particularly in the United States.
More than 15,000 people on dialysis are estimated to have died of COVID in 2020 alone, according to the U.S. Renal Data System. A labour shortage in the U.S. healthcare market has pushed wages higher and forced FMC, which derives about 70% of its revenue from the United States, and other dialysis providers to rely more on temporary staff.
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling has also shifted how much kidney care coverage private insurers and the government must offer.
The pressures have pushed FMC's shares to a near 13-year low and analysts expect the company’s adjusted net income to decline 14.5% to 870 million euros this year.
Parent company Fresenius SE (FREG.DE) has said a sale of FMC could not be ruled out.
For now though, FMC is trying to reposition itself in the market and sees hope for the company and patients alike: the new drugs, by slowing the progression of disease, should prolong the lives of those who do eventually need dialysis, keeping patients in FMC's care for longer, Frank Maddux, FMC's global chief medical officer, told Reuters.
“In the short run, we'll see the impact of some delayed (chronic kidney disease) progression but in the longer run, we're probably going to see an expansion of the number of people with chronic kidney disease that survive to live with the disease," said Maddux.
Sabastien Buch, a fund manager at Union Investment in Frankfurt, Germany, which holds FMC shares, agreed that even if fewer people end up needing dialysis, those who do are likely to live longer, thanks to the new drugs.
"Patients that start dialysis in better health will not pass away after four or five years, but will be part of a group that remain on therapy for maybe seven or eight years, which are rather rare cases today," said Buch.
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A study supported by the National Institutes of Health found that people who experienced acute kidney injury (AKI) during a hospitalization, including those admitted with AKI or who developed AKI in the hospital, were more likely to revisit the hospital or die shortly after discharge, compared to people hospitalized without AKI. AKI is a sudden loss of kidney function that usually lasts for a short time. The research, funded by NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), was published in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases(link is external)