Renalytix AI (RENX ) said it has entered into an agreement with Joslin Diabetes Center which will enable it to access intellectual property in regard to novel biomarkers in kidney disease.
The Company, which develops AI-enabled clinical in vitro diagnostic solutions for kidney disease, said that being granted access to proprietary blood biomarkers will enable it to potentially ‘significantly expand’ the utility of its in vitro diagnostics KidneyIntelX platform.
This is due to the fact that these novel biomarkers have the potential to provide additional clinical utility for understanding early disease progression and risk of kidney failure, therapeutic response, and the mechanistic pathways of kidney disease ‘beyond the inflammatory and tubular injury markers that are currently captured by KidneyIntelX.'
Biomarkers include additional inflammatory and pro-fibrotic markers which have been shown to improve prognostic performance in identifying which patients will progress to kidney failure and predict responses to therapy. Biomarkers can further our understanding of Kidney disease, a public health epidemic which affects over 850 million people globally.
The Company told investors that it plans to begin evaluating these novel biomarkers through several expanded clinical validation studies beginning in the second half of 2021.
Shares in Renalytix AI have nearly doubled in value since the beginning of 2021. The stock was trading 0.54% higher this morning at 935p following the company’s announcement.
These proprietary blood biomarkers have the potential to significantly expand the utility of the KidneyIntelX platform, particularly in understanding how to efficiently enroll and characterize appropriate participants in new drug validation trials,” said Fergus Fleming, CTO of Renalytix AI
Fleming said he believes the proprietary blood biomarkers could also have the potential to contribute to a better understanding of patient response to approved drug therapies.
He highlighted that, "We look forward to working with Joslin and other research and pharma collaborators to build a platform to advance our understanding of underlying causal pathways of kidney disease, and bring precision medicine solutions to clinical practice."
RenalytixAI secured an exclusive license from Joslin Diabetes Center in 2018 to intellectual property relating to sTNFR1 and sTNFR2, both of which have been extensively validated as highly prognostic biomarkers in multiple settings and are integral to the KidneyIntelX test.
"We are pleased to extend our collaboration with RenalytixAI and advance our shared objective to translate high-quality research findings into clinical practice, thereby improving care and outcomes for people with kidney disease worldwide," said Roberta Herman, MD, president and CEO of Joslin Diabetes Center.
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