Fresenius Medical Care, the world’s leading provider of products and services for people with chronic kidney failure, announced today that the company’s Frenova division has enrolled the first participants in its new initiative to develop the largest renal-focused genomic registry in the world.
    
Along with this key milestone, the company also announced that Ali Gharavi, MD, Chief of the Division of Nephrology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, will lead the project and provide scientific guidance as Principal Investigator.

As a contract clinical development services company dedicated exclusively to medicines and medical products in renal research, Frenova orchestrates studies within the clinical footprint of Fresenius Medical Care, which provides dialysis treatments to about 350,000 patients around the globe. The renal-focused genomic registry represents a new business line within Frenova, which is based in Fresenius Medical Care’s Global Medical Office.

As part of its growth strategy 2025, Fresenius Medical Care is using digital technologies and the capability to analyze huge amounts of data to develop new forms of renal therapy.

Nephrology has been under-represented in clinical research, even as rapid progress in gene sequencing and analysis has led to advances in precision medicine and individualized care in oncology, cardiology and other medical areas. Frenova’s new genomic registry will contain genetic sequencing data from chronic kidney disease patients worldwide, which will be used by researchers to improve the understanding of kidney disease. Frenova developed the registry after researchers identified the lack of a large-scale, renal-focused registry of genomic and clinical data as a major impediment to kidney disease research.

“The new Frenova registry will close this gap by generating data that adds a clinical and genetic backbone to help support and fuel scientific innovation,” said Franklin W. Maddux, MD, Global Chief Medical Officer of Fresenius Medical Care. “The evidence for genetic drivers in kidney diseases is substantial, but much larger data sets will be needed to untangle the complex interactions that lead to kidney injury. By combining clinical and genetic sequencing data from ethnically and pathologically diverse participants, this genomic and phenotypic research resource will help scientists better understand how genetic variations in patients can lead to more precise diagnoses and therapies that help improve outcomes by individualizing care.”

“Our renal-focused genomic registry will be a sustainable and comprehensive tool for kidney-focused research,” said Kurt Mussina, President of Frenova. “It will bring patients, their families, patient advocacy groups, physicians and researchers together in the common cause of improving the lives of people living with kidney disease.”

Learn more about Frenova Renal Research at www.frenova.com

Contact

T: +49 (0) 6172 608-4030
leif.heussen@fresenius.com

Related Link

ExThera website

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Fresenius Medical Care, the world’s leading provider of products and services for people with chronic kidney failure, will offer the Seraph 100 Microbind Affinity Blood Filter from ExThera Medical Corporation in several European countries as of now. Both companies have signed a co-marketing and distribution agreement, effective in January 2021 and covering Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

ExThera Medical’s Seraph 100 adsorber is used in critical care for the extracorporeal removal of pathogens from the bloodstream and can be operated with Fresenius Medical Care acute dialysis machines. Similar to the dialysis process, the blood is purified by pumping it through the filter. The Seraph 100 has been CE-certified since 2019 for the reduction of pathogens during bloodstream infections, in addition to therapy with anti-infectives.

“With the innovative adsorber technology from ExThera Medical, we are strengthening our offering in the field of critical care solutions, which is one of the key areas of the company’s strategy 2025,” said Dr Katarzyna Mazur-Hofsäß, Fresenius Medical Care’s CEO for Europe, Middle East and Africa. “Bloodstream infections often lead to kidney, lung or multiorgan failure. A treatment with the Seraph 100 can eliminate more than 90 percent of the pathogens in the patient’s blood for every pass through the filter. And the first treatment results of its use with COVID-19 patients are very promising.”

“We are very excited to partner with Fresenius Medical Care to broaden European availability of the Seraph 100,” said Bob Ward, Founder and CEO of ExThera Medical. “This distribution agreement ensures as many patients as possible will have access to a therapy that can help critically ill patients suffering from pathogen-oriented bloodstream infection.”

Fresenius Medical Care Ventures, the venture capital unit of Fresenius Medical Care, has a financial stake in ExThera Medical since 2016.