Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Each year, more than 13 million patients suffer from acute kidney injury, of which more than 30 percent die. The prevalence of kidney injury has risen to epidemic proportions. Over the past 60 years, little progress has been made to improve the statistics of this condition. But Denmark-based company BioPorto Diagnostics has developed a groundbreaking test called NGAL that can diagnose acute kidney injury early, adding valuable time for doctors to take proactive steps at an early stage that will prevent kidney injury from turning into the very dangerous state of kidney failure.

Kidney injury is a devastating disorder that often occurs as a complication of other serious illnesses and sometimes even treatments. For example, one form of kidney injury known as acute phosphate nephropathy, has been associated with the use of oral sodium phosphates (OSP), a type of laxative often given to patients to cleanse the bowel prior to colonoscopies. Incidents of the injury have skyrocketed in the past decade as more patients have regular colon screenings.

The new test will enable doctors to predict a patient’s outcome in a matter of hours as opposed to one to three days for existing methods of testing for kidney injury.

“The icing on the cake is that the NGAL test is designed to be used on apparatus that already exists in laboratories and hospitals. In this way we have secured that the test will be affordable and readily available to doctors worldwide,” says Thea Olesen, CEO of BioPorto.

The test will be presented this month at ASN Renal Week in San Diego, the yearly meeting point for kidney specialists from all over the world.

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