Research and Discovery
 

We have active research and discovery efforts focused on rare, severe kidney diseases. Our precision medicine research approach focuses on developing product candidates targeting the most promising molecular pathways identified as key disease drivers in collaboration with key scientific advisors.

Our scientific advisors provide valuable guidance on target selection, prioritization and validation strategies, as well as access to technology platforms that support target validation efforts through biological insights into human disease mechanisms and translational cellular and animal model systems. 

Our approach to precision medicines leverages recent advances in identifying targeted kidney therapies linked to mechanistic biomarkers by the application of systems biology approaches in nephrology. The application of this approach to nephrology has advanced over the past decade through the study of multiple patient groups across a wide variety of kidney diseases and their associated multilevel data sets, including genome, transcriptome, proteome, metabolome, pathology and prospective long-term clinical characteristics and outcomes. A key objective of these investigations is to define kidney diseases in molecular terms to drive the development of targeted treatments. We believe we are well-positioned to exploit the insights provided into the key molecular drivers and classifiers of kidney diseases by the application of these systems biology tools to nephrology. Our strategy is to use these mechanistic insights to select compelling drug targets and deliver novel and differentiated product candidates for rare and severe kidney diseases with high unmet medical need.

In May 2023, we announced a collaboration with Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for the discovery, development and commercialization of an ASO therapy for a rare, severe chronic kidney disease with significant unmet medical need. The collaboration will leverage our precision medicine approach and deep expertise in nephrology and Ionis’ extensive expertise in RNA-targeted therapeutics. Ionis will be responsible for IND-enabling toxicology studies and we will be responsible for clinical development and commercialization.

In March 2021, we announced a strategic collaboration with Evotec to jointly identify, characterize and validate novel mechanisms and discover precision medicines for lupus nephritis, IgAN, polycystic kidney disease (PKD) and other primary glomerular diseases. The collaboration leverages access to the National Unified Renal Translational Research Enterprise (NURTuRE) patient biobank for chronic kidney diseases and nephrotic syndrome as well as Evotec’s proprietary PanOmics platform, which combines enhanced throughput proteomics, high throughput transcriptomics and cell imaging with PanHunter, Evotec’s unique data analysis platform. The collaboration also involves further characterization of pathways and patient stratification strategies for programs currently in Chinook’s clinical and preclinical pipeline.