NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The Centre of Excellence for the Prevention of Organ Failure (PROOF Centre) announced today that it has formed a partnership with AstraZeneca and the Canadian Study of Prediction of Death, Dialysis and Interim Cardiovascular Events (CanPREDDICT) to develop a blood-based test to predict the rate of disease progression in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD).
CanPREDDICT is a large-scale prospective study launched in 2008 that is following as many as 2,500 CKD patients throughout Canada. Under the terms of their arrangement, the PROOF Centre and AstraZeneca will analyze the study's clinical data to identify genomic and proteomic biomarkers that can distinguish patients with rapid disease progression from those with slow disease progression.
"Biomarkers to better predict disease progression will be a valuable tool to provide more personalized care for patients suffering from CKD," University of British Columbia researcher Adeera Levin, who is leading the CanPREDDICT study, said in a statement. "If developed as a blood test that corresponds to different patient trajectories, it will offer clinicians a better way of knowing which patients need more intensive medical attention and management."
"Knowing which patients with this disease are likely to face rapid decline and which ones are not is a major hurdle in clinical trials for new therapeutics," Peter Greasley, director of clinical research at AstraZeneca, added in the statement. "Biomarkers identified in this collaboration will enable patient stratification that in turn may reduce the time, number of patients, and costs needed for such trials."
AstraZeneca, through its MedImmune unit, has an active CKD drug program. The company last year struck a collaboration with the University of Michigan to identify potential therapeutic targets and biomarkers for the disease.