The Prospect of a Novel Therapeutic, Bone Morphogenetic Protein-7, in Diabetic Nephropathy

We are in the midst of a worldwide epidemic of diabetes and hypertension. In the United States, the overall incidence of end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) is increasing at an alarming rate due to this epidemic. Recently, the incidence of ESKD was estimated at 336 per million per year (1), such that the number of patients with ESKD may approach 2.24 million by 2030. Moreover, approx 11% of the population is estimated to have chronic kidney disease (CKD), with nearly half the patients with a glomerular filtration rate (GFR) less than 60 mL/min/1.73 m2 (2). Similar estimates for other countries have been described in Europe (3), Japan (4), and Australia (5). The most common form of CKD in all of these countries is diabetic nephropathy (DN), accounting for approx 40% of the new cases of ESKD in developed countries.