Margarida Maia, PhD,  science writer—

Nearly one year of treatment with rituximab was superior to traditional immunosuppressive medications at helping people with ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) achieve remission after a severe relapse, an analysis of data from a multicenter study in Japan has found. Such superiority was not observed at six months of treatment,…

The combination antibiotic trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) may help prevent serious infections for people with granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) who are taking the immunosuppressant rituximab, a study of U.S. data shows. Preventive treatment, or prophylaxis, with TMP-SMX in people with this common type of ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) tended to…

Conduit Pharmaceuticals is planning to launch Phase 2a clinical trials to test its lead oral candidate AZD1656 in people with immune system disorders — specifically ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) as one indication. “With its potential to become a first-in-class therapy for autoimmune diseases, AZD1656 represents a significant leap forward…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given Nkarta the green light to launch a clinical trial testing its cell therapy candidate NKX019 in people with ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) and other autoimmune disorders. The upcoming multicenter trial, dubbed Ntrust-2, is expected to initially recruit as many as…

Tavneos (avacopan) is better than the glucocorticoid prednisone at promoting disease remission, lowering relapse rates, and improving quality of life in ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) patients with active ear, nose, or throat (ENT) manifestations. That’s according to new subgroup analyses from the Phase 3 ADVOCATE clinical trial (NCT02994927).

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) — a chronic disease where the bowel becomes inflamed, causing recurring lower abdominal pain and diarrhea — can overlap with ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) and is often diagnosed first, a study found. The finding suggests a possible link between the two diseases, and that having IBD…

About 1 in every 5 people with ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV), at some point in life, may experience problems that keep the thyroid gland from making the right amount of hormones, with these problems most often developing within five years of an AAV diagnosis, a large study found. While…

High blood levels of the protein CX3CL1, a pro-inflammatory immune signal that appears to be associated with blood vessel inflammation, can accurately discriminate microscopic polyangiitis (MPA) and granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) patients with active disease from those without, a study found. Importantly, high CX3CL1 levels were found to increase the…

Argenx has decided not to go ahead with its development plans for efgartigimod as a potential treatment for ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) after the therapy failed to show beneficial effects in late-stage clinical trials of two other autoimmune diseases. Efgartigimod is approved in the U.S. in two formulations for…

Amgen is planning to launch a Phase 3 clinical trial testing Tavneos (avacopan) — its approved therapy for adults with ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) — in combination with a standard regimen of rituximab or cyclophosphamide in children and adolescents with active AAV. That’s according to a company press release…