Intellectual Property Suite: Cell-Specific Treatments for Proteinuria
Jochen Reiser (primary inventor)
Problem
Proteinuria is serious sign of kidney impairment that is present in up to 500 million people around the world. Persistent proteinuria can lead to progression of chronic renal disease and end-stage renal failure. Moreover, persistent proteinuria is, by itself, a risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The underlying cause of proteinuria has been associated with podocyte injury, cells that play a central role in the renal filtration barrier.
Effective drug development to cure or decrease the rate of renal disease progression is deficient compared to other medical conditions with similar disease burden. Common proteinuria therapeutics are only partially effective because they merely affect general inflammatory pathways e.g., steroids or blood pressure reduction. Of the available treatments, none target the disease process of proteinuria or the progression in a cell-specific way which would be substantially more effective.
Solution
A suite of intellectual property has been developed (4 patent applications, 2 patent applications in-preparation) that serves to attack the problem of proteinuria and kidney disease in a multifaceted, comprehensive approach that is inherently cell-specific. Continued research in this area with the aim of translation to the bedside is and remains the main focus of the Inventor.
Competitive Advantage
Current protocols employed to treat chronic renal disease and end-stage renal failure are among the most expensive in all of Internal Medicine. Moreover, these protocols merely affect more general pathways (e.g. inflammatory) and are not kidney cell-specific. Renal cell-specific therapeutics would be substantially more effective in treating proteinuria and should significantly reduce the costs associated with using existing strategies.
Applications
New therapeutics that fight kidney disease (proteinuria and progression) using enzymatic blockade of one or several of the validated targets identified (patents pending) by the inventors.
Screening and risk stratification tools for predicting/monitoring recurrence of renal disease after kidney transplant
Patent Status
International patent application filed on November 6, 2009
