Ardelyx drugs are non-systemic thus greatly reducing potential side-effects
While numerous medications are available to treat mineral metabolism disorders and metabolic diseases, the usefulness of these agents is often limited by:
For many individuals living with these diseases, there is an unmet medical need for safe and effective treatments that improve quality of life and greatly lower the risk of side effects.
On-target and off-target effects of traditional drugs
In traditional medicinal chemistry, after a molecule has been shown to “hit” a target – which may be a transporter, a channel, or a receptor – efforts typically focus on modifying the molecule so that it is bioavailable and selective to the target. There is also a significant focus on designing drugs that are devoid of on-target and off-target side effects. However, this is where many traditional efforts often fall short. Most small molecule drugs inadvertently bind to other targets in the body causing unwanted and potentially unsafe side effects.
Minimally systemic drugs have the potential to greatly reduce off-target effects
At Ardelyx, we are developing orally administered drug candidates that are active only in the gut. Because their absorption is restricted, these drug candidates have greatly reduced risk of exposure to transporters or receptors expressed in other tissues. We have leveraged many of the modern methods of medicinal chemistry to establish a unique set of capabilities that allow for the creation of innovative, potent molecules with greatly reduced systemic exposure as compared to conventional small-molecule drugs.
