Spotlight on Kidney Week 2023
To date, Variant Bio has launched several genomic studies with a focus on kidney disease in various parts of the world, from a collaboration with the African Research on Kidney Disease (ARK) Consortium in South Africa to a partnership with the Turkana Health and Genomics Project in Kenya. Our research in this arena has one important goal: to develop therapies that will help save the lives of kidney disease patients around the globe.
As Variant Bio progresses its novel programs in kidney disease, it is essential that the company stay up to date with the latest scientific and medical advances in this area. To this end, I attended Kidney Week 2023 — the world’s premier nephrology meeting, which took place in Philadelphia, PA this year — together with my colleagues from R&D, Konstantin Deutsch and Yvette Latchman.
Over the course of the four-day conference, which brought together ~12,000 attendees (perhaps the biggest meeting ever for the American Society of Nephrology), we met with leading kidney disease experts, as well as with key companies and collaborators. We also attended talks on diverse topics related to kidney research — from genetic studies to basic science, clinical trials, and health disparities in patient care.
It was remarkable to see the renaissance currently underway for new therapies in kidney disease. As one nephrologist observed, whereas twenty years ago only dialysis companies were showcasing their products at meetings such as these, today there are several new therapies on the horizon. In particular, there are now new drugs for IgA nephropathy (especially prevalent in Asia) and new Phase 2 data for Diabetic nephropathy from two prominent pharmaceutical companies.
Despite important therapeutic advances, however, nephrologists at the conference emphasized that there remains a great deal of unmet medical need, and that new drugs are urgently needed for kidney disease. In fact, there are now more people than ever suffering from end-stage kidney disease around the world.
Hence Variant Bio’s particular focus on kidneys — those organs that, as Harold Pontzer writes in Burn (2022), “are your body’s housecleaning staff: tireless, essential, and underappreciated.” Our incredible team of scientists is working hard every day to advance target programs in kidney disease to the clinic, and to one day saving the lives of patients in need.
