This timely, adaptive, and dynamic educational activity is targeted to managed care professionals, physicians, and specialty pharmacists attending the 2021 Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) Nexus meeting. Activity attendees will be given the opportunity to interact with world-renowned expert faculty across all clinically relevant aspects of iron deficiency anemia (IDA) management in chronic kidney disease (CKD). The session will begin with a thorough review of iron metabolism and absorption principles, including the practical distinctions between absolute and functional iron deficiency, and the impact of that distinction on treatment. An exhaustive appraisal of the multifactorial etiologies and foundational pathophysiology of anemia in CKD will follow, with a central emphasis on the role of hepcidin in a hyperinflammatory disease state like CKD and how that process should lead to preferential use of intravenous (IV) iron versus oral iron modalities in these patients. Completed, ongoing, and planned clinical trials of IV iron for IDA management, both specific to CKD and in the general populace, will be examined, and newer formulations with nanoparticle drug design will be highlighted, especially their substantively improved safety profile over the older high-molecular weight (HMW) dextran products. Finally, using real-world patient cases, expert key insights on how and why IV iron possesses the capacity to revolutionize treatment of IDA in CKD, the importance of nanomedicine design, budgetary impact analyses (BIA) of IV iron products, with an emphasis on ESA dose reduction and avoidance of transfusions, natural history of IV iron agents to-date and the critical distinguishing factors among currently-approved agents, and lastly, the provision of evidence-based algorithms for optimal diagnosis, evaluation, and safe, cost-efficient treatment of IDA in CKD.

Presented by Creative Educational Concepts and Supported by an Independent Educational Grant from American Regent.