Kidney drug hits another hurdle

Despite winning a surprisingly broad indication for Idefirix in Australia, Hansa Biopharma has hit yet another hurdle in gaining public funding for the kidney desensitisation treatment.

An application requesting funding for Idefirix under the National Health Reform Agreement was knocked back by the Medical Services Advisory Committee (MSAC) in October 2023 after being considered at the July 2023 meeting. Idefirix is intended as a desensitisation treatment of highly sensitised (HS) adult kidney transplant patients with a positive crossmatch against an available deceased or living donor who are unlikely to be transplanted under current kidney allocation systems.

Now a second application, considered at the August 2024 meeting has been deferred until the committee consults with other stakeholders who are involved in the planning and governance of kidney transplants.