Although I have little medical background, I do know that Rituximab is one of the go-to drugs for Kidney disease, particularly FSGS which is the main focus for Dimerix's candiate DMX-200

What is Rituximab?

Rituximab is a cancer drug called a monoclonal antibody. Monoclonal antibodies target proteins on the surface of cancer cells. Rituximab targets a protein called CD20. (Cancer research UK)

The CD20 protein is also found on white blood B cells and is part of our immune system which is also where this gets interesting. When someone has kidney disease, the immune system come and fight the infection, but also may get too active and end up harming the kidney - similar to autoimmune disease. Rituximab is administered to reduce the number of B-cells and protect the kidney from further harm by the immune system.

So now Rituximab is not just used for cancer, but also treatment of Kidney disease due to the above characteristics.

Problems with Rituximab

By weakening the immune system, Rituximab can cause problems with other conditions and side-effects such as being more exposed to infections and viruses. Most critical one is the weakening of the Liver which is troublesome for people who had hepatitis B in the past. Weakening the immune system may activate hepatitis B lying dormant in the Liver. The obvious workaround is taking an antiviral such as Entecavir before taking Rituximab.

I've also been told that the Rituximab is not always successful in fighting kidney disease from one of the renal doctors. Usually there is 70-80% chance of treatment being effective

Opportunities/shortcomings for DMX-200

I haven't found much on how DMX-200 works. From the Dimerix website we know that DMX-200 is a chemokine receptor (CCR2) blocker taken in conjunction with Avapro/Irbesartan. But there could be lots of positives if DMX-200 can overcome the shortcomings of Rituximab.

We probably won't know too much until the Phase III trials are finished some time at the beginning of 2026 which is a long wait which I found when going to the clinical trials website.

Therefore much of the success in Dimerix hinges on license deals as well as any indication of the product being safer to use against the current treatments such as Rituximab

Anyway I thought I would share what is weighing on my mind while holding Dimerix.

[held]