Evotec and Harvard University expand kidney disease alliance
Will also work with the Brigham and Women’s Hospital on the CureNephron programme
Evotec of Germany has announced a second strategic alliance with Harvard University in the US, aimed at discovering and developing new biomarkers and treatments for kidney disease. The first collaboration, CureBeta, was set up in March 2011 to develop new diabetes therapies targeting beta cell regeneration.
In the latest agreement, Harvard, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and Evotec will combine their expertise in kidney biology, physiology and disease with a unique set of tools to identify, validate and develop candidate targets and biomarkers.
This CureNephron programme aims to deliver and exploit novel therapeutic targets as well as biomarkers that allow more accurate diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of chronic and acute kidney disease.
Advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) and severe forms of acute kidney injury have very limited treatment options and are associated with high morbidity and mortality. Patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD) suffer from complete loss of kidney function and have to be treated by dialysis, a burdensome procedure with limited efficacy and generally poor prognosis. Novel therapeutic approaches are needed that have the potential to protect and restore the function of key kidney cell types aiming to slow and reverse disease progression for patients with non-dialysis dependent CKD as well as patients with ESRD on dialysis.
‘Our combined efforts will lead to new insights into kidney disease biology and fuel a pipeline of commercially exciting drug candidates in acute and chronic kidney disease,’ said Dr Cord Dohrmann, chief scientific officer at Evotec.
Dr Andy McMahon, professor at Harvard University, added: ‘The primary mechanisms leading and driving the development of kidney damage have not been systematically explored. We aim to screen comprehensively for these mechanisms looking at how individual kidney cell types respond to acute and chronic insults during various stages of disease progression as well as during the recovery process.’
