Kidney Drug Found Effective for Infertility Treatment

Tokyo, Feb. 10 (Jiji Press)–An oral medicine used to treat chronic kidney disease and heart failure is also effective in treating premature ovarian insufficiency, a team of Japanese and other researchers has discovered. The discovery by the team including researchers from Juntendo University in Japan and the University of Hong Kong, was published in the electronic edition of the U.S. journal Science by Tuesday. The team expects the finding to lead to a new infertility therapy. “We want to optimize ovary stimulation and find more effective medicines,” Juntendo University professor Kazuhiro Kawamura said. Patients with premature ovarian insufficiency lose their menstrual cycles before turning 40. While this condition involves ovarian fibrosis, which prevents follicle growth, the drug, called finerenone, curbs fibrosis in kidney and heart tissue. In a clinical trial, the team administered finerenone to patients with the condition, while also using medicines for ovary stimulation and ovum maturation. As a result, a fertilized egg was obtained through in vitro fertilization. Prior to the clinical trial, the team had confirmed in an experiment on mice that finerenone facilitates follicle growth. The mice that received the drug produced more offspring than usual, and the offspring had no abnormalities. In 2013, Kawamura, then associate professor at St. Marianna University School of Medicine, introduced an infertility treatment method called “in vitro activation.” This method, which is now in clinical use, collects part of the patient’s ovaries through laparoscope, activates follicles with medical agents, and transplants them beneath the ovarian membrane. However, the procedure requires general anesthesia, which puts a great strain on the patient. The team sought an oral medicine with similar effects to the method. After testing about 1,300 medicines that had been confirmed as safe, it eventually discovered finerenone. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]