Biomarker & Intervention Discovery
Interstitial Cystitis / Bladder Pain Syndrome (IC/BPS)
Pharmacologically actionable gene targets, therapeutic agents ranked by evidence tier, and active clinical trials.
NIH funding$22MFY2025 · RCDC estimate
Funding levelWell-Funded
Spontaneous remissionPartial spontaneous remission in 20-30% at 2 years; complete resolution rare; chronic pain condition with significant…
Best-intervention remissionMultimodal approach (dietary modification + physical therapy + neuromodulation + intravesical therapy): 50-70% overall…
Gap sizeVery large — no FDA-approved treatment; management is symptomatic and highly individualised
Primary barrierbiological + practice
Full remission profile →
Remission & chronicity
Spontaneous remission
Partial spontaneous remission in 20-30% at 2 years; complete resolution rare; chronic pain condition with significant disability; no biomarker-defined diagnosis complicates studies
Best-intervention remission
Multimodal approach (dietary modification + physical therapy + neuromodulation + intravesical therapy): 50-70% overall treatment response but rarely complete remission; intravesical heparin + lidocaine + sodium bicarbonate: 70-80% short-term response; sacral neuromodulation: 48-60% significant improvement at 2 years; cyclosporine A (oral): 75% improvement in Hunner lesion IC vs 19% placebo
Gap size
Very large — no FDA-approved treatment; management is symptomatic and highly individualised
Primary barrier
biological + practice
Only pentosan polysulfate sodium (Elmiron, FDA approved 1996) has FDA approval for IC/BPS, and this is now associated with maculopathy (pigmentary maculopathy) with long-term use; Hunner lesion IC (25% of cases) is a distinct pathological entity with different treatment response than non-Hunner IC; diagnostic heterogeneity makes clinical trials extremely difficult
Biomarker Targets & Therapeutic Agents
Gene targets queried against DGIdb, Open Targets, ChEMBL, PubMed, and Europe PMC.
Agents ranked: ● Clinical >
● Mechanistic >
● Correlative.
Pipeline results not yet available. Run: python -m biomarker_pipeline.run_for_diseases --skip-llm
Clinical Trials
Recruiting and recently completed trials from ClinicalTrials.gov.
Data retrieved 2026-07-06.
No recent clinical trials found on ClinicalTrials.gov for this condition.
Agents Found By Disease-Level Search
Searched directly from “Interstitial Cystitis / Bladder Pain Syndrome (IC/BPS)” via ClinicalTrials.gov interventions and Open Targets'
disease→drug data — independent of the 0-gene target panel above.
This surfaces agents whose mechanism doesn't route through a curated gene (combination
therapies, standard-of-care drugs, targets outside the panel).
Not yet run. python -m biomarker_pipeline.run_disease_agent_discovery --disease "..."