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By Felicity Taylor
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) — A local company says it has discovered a new way to identify and treat kidney disease.
AMPEL BioSolutions is a precision medicine company that studies RNA and gene expression to understand diseases and how to better treat them.
It released a test called NephroGENE that examines people with kidney disease.
AMPEL President Amrie Grammer says the test is a game-changer because doctors currently only study kidney tissue, not a person’s genes.
The company says this test can predict kidney damage before it’s too late. and help identify the right drugs to treat it.
“This is really crucial for pharmaceutical drug development and should improve the chance of some of those 45 drugs in development actually getting approved by the FDA and coming to market, assisting lupus nephritis patients, potentially stopping the progression to dialysis and transplantation,” said Grammer.
Grammer said the company hopes to bring the test to clinics within two years, and in that time, add more treatment drugs to the FDA-approved list.