NEW YORK – Boditech Med said Tuesday it will develop and make point-of-care tests for acute kidney injury using a kidney function biomarker licensed from SphingoTec.
Gangwon-do, South Korea-based Boditech Med said the assay will measure kidney function using the biomarker proenkephalin A 119-159, or penKid, and will be designed for use on Boditech's AFIAS and Ichroma instruments.
The nonexclusive, royalty-bearing agreement will let Boditech Med sell the tests for use on its worldwide AFIAS and Ichroma installed base, it said. Financial and other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
SphingoTec, based in Hennigsdorf, Germany, announced in August it was introducing penKid as an experimental biomarker for routine management of patients at the University Hospital of Heidelberg and Heidelberg Kidney Center, and the company said at the time recent data indicated a diagnostic tool using the biomarker provided faster and more accurate assessment of kidney function than alternatives.
Boditech Med said about one in five hospitalized patients develops acute kidney injury and assays using penKid can help identify injury earlier than the current standard-of-care biomarkers, which typically aid in diagnosis once about 50 percent of kidney function is already lost.
SphingoTec CEO Jörg Menten said in a statement that the firm's research also shows the potential to use the penKid biomarker to monitor kidney function in renal replacement therapy and pediatric acute kidney injury management.