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Help us design KidneyX

Summary: 
KidneyX seeks to improve the lives of the 850 million people currently affected by kidney diseases worldwide by accelerating the development of drugs, devices, biologics and other therapies across the spectrum of kidney care including: Prevention, Diagnostics and Treatment.

By Elizabeth Squire, Communications Director, and Ross Bowling, Operations Research Analyst.

KidneyX seeks to improve the lives of the 850 million people currently affected by kidney diseases worldwide by accelerating the development of drugs, devices, biologics and other therapies across the spectrum of kidney care including: Prevention, Diagnostics and Treatment. For KidneyX, HHS has partnered with the American Society for Nephrology (ASN) to use prize competitions to spur innovation in preventing, diagnosing, and treating kidney diseases. As we continue to develop and design KidneyX, we are looking for your input and today we're happy to announce that we have just published 2 KidneyX Requests for Information (RFIs). One RFI gives some background about the KidneyX project and asks for feedback on how the project can be most effective while the second RFI seeks your input on plans for an upcoming KidneyX prize competition focused on developing alternative therapies for kidney failure.

HHS and ASN's goal with KidneyX is to improve quality of life for people living with kidney diseases. This means we're interested in a wide range of potential KidneyX prize competition topics. Possible topics for future prize competitions include (but definitely aren't limited to):

  • Medications- a variety of treatments for kidney diseases, including drugs and biologics
  • Diagnostics - point-of-care or at-home testing kits, better methods to measure kidney function
  • Patient-centered Tools - electronic health record tools designed to identify and track diseases, applications to empower patients to manage kidney diseases, methods to improve communication within the patient community
  • Next Generation Dialysis - wearable or implantable dialyzers, tissue engineering
  • Prevention -- methods to identify people at risk of kidney diseases and to slow the progression of those with early stage or chronic kidney diseases

The KidneyX team is eager to hear from the people that KidneyX has the potential to impact most: people living with kidney diseases, providers, care partners, innovators, and researchers, to name a few. These RFIs mark the first opportunity for the general public to provide input on KidneyX.

Some opportunities for input include:

  1. What unmet needs - including those related to product development-should KidneyX prize competitions focus on? If you are a person living with a kidney disease, what makes these topic areas particularly important?
  2. What assistance or services might HHS and ASN offer to KidneyX prize winners that would encourage the greatest participation from a broad range of innovators?
  3. In what ways might HHS and ASN, through KidneyX, effectively encourage collaboration or cooperation between participants/prize winners while respecting their intellectual property rights?
  4. Particularly for those interested in participating in a KidneyX prize competition but unfamiliar with kidney functions and diseases, what information would you find it most useful for HHS and ASN to share publicly?

The first prize will focus on developing alternative therapies for kidney failure and will launch on Thursday, October 25, 2018.

To submit your feedback on KidneyX, you can e-mail us at [email protected] or mail your feedback to KidneyX c/o Ross Bowling, 200 Independence Avenue SW, Room 624D, Washington, D.C., 20201.

We will be accepting and incorporating feedback until September 14, 2018.

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Health IT