Leading the Way in Kidney ResearchAccelerating kidney research and improving the quality of care for patients with kidney disease requires innovative thinking and challenging the status quo. Our team of leading scientific leaders and operational experts connect key opinion leaders, investigators, research sites, patients, regulators and clients with a common purpose and an innovative operational platform for conducting kidney clinical trials. The GKPTN is endorsed by the International Society of Nephrology and aims to work with kidney disease networks globally.
Collaboratively, we will take kidney research to the next level across the globe.
“By bringing patients, established sites and trials closer together, GKPTN aims to strengthen the global kidney disease research community’s capacity to facilitate more rapid translation of new interventions from research into practice.”
Kidney disease stands prominently as a global health problem due to its increasing prevalence and costly burden placed on individual patients and the entire healthcare system. Novel treatments to reduce the risk of kidney and cardiovascular complications represent the best solution. This path requires innovative approaches, such as structures that facilitate rapid access to trials for interested patients, trial designs that enable efficient testing of multiple agents and stable infrastructures that facilitate continued research activity by regional health services. Each piece of this equation benefits from the network effect of a global platform that accelerates the discovery of novel treatments for patients with chronic kidney disease.
Global Kidney Patients Trials Network (GKPTN):
Recruitment is underway across 10 countries with the aim of enrolling more than 5,000 participants this year.
Kidney trial specialists collaborating across the globe empower the platform to improve patient outcomes by facilitating internal evaluation of numerous kidney diseases and allowing access in some cases to trial operations that generate evidence about the efficacy and safety of new treatment strategies. Networked project teams in the platform recruit patients with chronic kidney disease interested in participating in clinical research and then provide them rapid access to relevant clinical trials as they become available. Participants consent to be approached about participation in current or future trials, as well as agree to follow up visits every six months for a minimum of five years along with bio-banking of blood samples at time of recruitment.
Hosted trials recruit ‘trial-ready’ patients from sources within the platform, governed in a centralized collaborative manner, and incorporate innovative trial methodology and pragmatic operational practices. By bringing patients, established sites and trials closer together, GKPTN aims to strengthen the global kidney disease research community’s capacity to facilitate more rapid translation of new interventions from research into practice.
The platform concept arose from widespread discussions with clinicians, key opinion leaders in countries all around the world and members of kidney disease organisations focused on how to deliver better coordination between sponsors, site participants and trials. George Clinical intends the platform to live and grow through simultaneously serving the interests of the global kidney disease community and sponsors. In this spirit, the lead investigators within GKPTN also liaise with registries and other existing networks of people with kidney disease, and our team welcomes enquiries from organisations that share this vision.
