This New Product Could Help Identify Your Risk of Developing Kidney Disease

Chronically high blood sugar levels can significantly affect the health and function of your kidneys. Monitoring your kidney function with your healthcare team is integral to managing diabetes. 

Now, there is a new way people with diabetes can keep an eye on their kidneys. Journey Biosciences wants to help prevent kidney disease from surfacing in people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes with their flagship product, NaviDKD. 

No product like it has been widely available to patients before, though its science has been studied at length among various researchers. NaviDKD is a simple test that can predict your risk of developing diabetic kidney disease. 

Here, we’ll take a closer look at how Journey Biosciences came to create this unique product.

Founded with a Goal to Provide More Robust Diabetes Care 

Journey Biosciences was founded by endocrinologist, Dr. Paul Beisswenger, MD, after feeling frustrated that he couldn’t prevent some of his patients from developing diabetes complications while practicing at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. 

Beisswenger’s drive to understand why some of his patients developed complications while others didn’t, despite having similar levels of glycemic control, led him to start his research on biomarkers and AGEs (advanced glycation endproducts). This journey led to the discovery that specific AGEs are predictive of kidney disease, stemming the creation of Journey Biosciences and NaviDKD.

NaviDKD is a blood test that allows researchers and healthcare providers to predict a person with diabetes’ risk of developing kidney disease. A small 2mL blood sample can determine if a person with diabetes will likely develop kidney disease in the next 10 to 12 years. 

The product is up to 86% accurate in positively predicting kidney disease.

Precise Results Enable Proactive Care, Reduction in Future Complications 

Journey Biosciences assesses an individual’s risk of developing kidney disease because everyone has unique circumstances and genetics that can determine their future health. 

Today, data shows that 1 in 3 people living with diabetes develops kidney disease in their lifetime—and approximately 30 percent of people with type 1 diabetes. Meanwhile, 10 to 40 percent of people with type 2 diabetes develop end-stage kidney failure. Journey Biosciences wants to reduce these statistics. 

Predicting your risk of developing kidney disease as a person with diabetes can help you change your current care regimen. 

Changes a person might make if their risk of diabetic kidney disease is high include: 

• Reduce stress

• Exercise routinely

• Choose foods with a positive impact on individual health

• Get enough sleep

• Limit alcohol intake

• Quit smoking

Preventative testing can help reduce the risk of kidney disease, prevent its escalation and even eliminate the need for dialysis. This treatment can cost over $10,000 annually, depending on the type of dialysis you need and the level of care. 

Deborah Ruppert, head of commercial marketing at Journey Biosciences, told Beyond Type 1 that the organization’s goal is to make NaviDKD a standardized part of diabetes care. 

Current kidney diagnostic screening tests, like eGFR and UACR, are not predictive—they only tell you if you have kidney disease. Whereas, NaviDKD gives people with diabetes more hope and information they can use with their healthcare providers to develop treatment pathways to avoid kidney disease progression.

“It’s a very personalized, precise risk profile,” explains Ruppert. “The patients living with diabetes and their healthcare providers will be able to come together and say, ‘Okay, if I don’t change X, Y, Z now, this is what my future could look like.’”