Rockwell Looking to Start New Iron Age

Iron management in dialysis patients today is largely done intravenously; however, in the next few years Wixom, Mich.-based Rockwell Medical Technologies hopes to have a new dialysate-delivered iron drug on the market that could improve iron care, as well as save money.

Robert Chioni, Rockwell president and CEO, formed the company in 1995 when it started making dialysis kits and other ancillary dialysis products. In the years since, the company has grown from four employees to more than 130, has its own fleet of delivery trucks and is one of four major concentrate manufactures and distributors in the United States.

Today, Rockwell’s top priority is to complete the development of its iron therapy called Soluble Ferric Pyrophosphate, or SFP. It is designed to be delivered in small amounts as part of the dialysate during a dialysis treatment.

Ajay Gupta, MD, said he hopes SFP will solve the biggest challenge in iron management today—to efficiently deliver iron to bone marrow. He added that getting the iron to the bone marrow effectively and efficiently can lead to healthier patients, as well as lower costs for renal care overall. Gupta is an associate professor of medicine at UCLA and Charles Drew University Schools of Medicine, Los Angeles, as well as the inventor of SFP as a parenteral iron supplement .

SFP is a simple iron salt comprising ferric iron tightly bound to pyrophosphate with the highest binding stability constant vs. other large polymeric iron-carbohydrate complexes used intravenously, according to Rockwell. SFP’s pyrophosphate component physiologically already exists naturally in the human body and is the chelator used by the body to normally transport iron inside the cells.

The phase 2 study of SFP should be finished at the end of 2009, and a phase 3 study could start by the end of 2010. Chioni said he expects SFP to hit the market in 2011.