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3-2-1 Chronic Kidney Disease
3 health tech startups, 2 actionable insights, and 1 key resource at the intersection of medicine and emerging tech.
Priyanka Vaidya
August 25, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
🌟 Weekly Note
This week, I attended a panel discussing AI’s Impact on Women’s Health. It was wonderful to hear how various health tech companies are leveraging AI to monitor microbiomes and hormones, moving the needle for advancing women’s health. Some key takeaways were the need to create more inclusive datasets, closing the gender health and research gap, and discussing the role of policies, payers, and providers in shaping the AI in Healthcare landscape.
🗓️ Let’s chat about your health tech journey!
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a long-term condition in which the kidneys gradually lose their ability to filter waste and excess fluids from the blood, often progressing over years with few early symptoms. In its more advanced stages, CKD can lead to dangerous complications and require interventions like dialysis or transplantation. CKD is a widespread health issue, affecting an estimated 10% of the global adult population, affecting hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Several key risk factors drive the rise in chronic kidney disease (CKD). The most prominent are diabetes and high blood pressure, which together account for the majority of CKD cases globally. Other important drivers include obesity, older age, family history of kidney disease, heart disease, and certain genetic factors. Lifestyle-related risks such as unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, tobacco use, and excessive alcohol intake also play significant roles, especially in lower- and middle-income countries.
Early detection and management are essential, as many people do not experience symptoms until the disease has significantly progressed.
🦄 3 startups making an impact in this space:
Location | US | France | US |
Modality | Prediction & Diagnosis | Remote monitoring | Therapeutics |
Descriptor | Renalytix’s KidneyIntelX™ technology helps clinical teams understand the patient's level of risk for progressive decline in kidney function in the earliest stages of diabetic kidney disease. | A BioWearable device tailored for the prevention and monitoring of chronic kidney disease. | Bioengineered therapeutic tissue for kidney disease. |
Core Problem | Traditional clinical kidney measurements are flawed. Physicians typically look at estimated GFR and urinary albumin creatinine ratio levels, but they are inadequate in identifying those select patients who are more likely to experience progressive decline in kidney function. | Monitoring a patient’s kidney health requires blood draws and is not real-time. | Kidney disease impacts 850 million people worldwide, 37 million in the United States. There are only two treatment options for people who progress to kidney failure: a rare kidney transplant or dialysis. |
Solution | Renalytix’s highly reliable, bioprognostic™ methodology yields a simple-to-understand risk result, predicting which adult patients with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease stages are at high risk for progressive decline in kidney function over the next 5 years. | Metyos’ sensors enable real-time monitoring and help patients and providers monitor ions and minerals in real time that can accumulate in the bloodstream when the kidney function is affected | Trestle is developing an implantable therapeutic tissue that will be delivered to patients suffering from end-stage renal disease (ESRD). |
Product suite | FDA-approved product, kidneyintelX.dkd, generates a risk result and identifies those patients who are at the highest risk for progressive decline in kidney function. | A biowearable companion device that includes painless microcones allowing gentle access to the skin's interstitial fluid for specific and medical-grade quality measurements. | An implantable bioengineered tissue that will get patients off dialysis, delay their need for transplantation, and one day become replacement organs. |
Regulatory Status | FDA-approved | N/A | N/A |
Funding Stage | Public | Pre-seed | Seed |
Team | Leadership team with a strong background in medical diagnostics. | A team of industry experts, entrepreneurs, doctors, and engineers. | Vascular biologists and tissue engineers. |
Traction | Strong traction with leading health systems. | Early traction. | Research stage. |
🚀 2 actionable insights to inspire your strategy:
AI/ML | Wearables |
|---|---|
AI and machine learning are being used for early diagnosis, risk prediction, treatment optimization, and patient stratification, leveraging electronic health record data and digital biomarkers to improve outcomes. Integrated digital platforms enhance care coordination, make patient data accessible across providers, and use smart nudges and coaching to promote self-management and lifestyle interventions. | Wearable sensors and home-based devices now allow real-time monitoring of CKD patients’ vital signs, fluid balance, sleep, and physical activity, offering early detection of complications like volume overload or arrhythmia and enabling truly personalized care at home. |
🌟 1 interesting resource:
Listen to this episode on the ‘Diary of a Kidney Warrior’ podcast to find out more about smart dietary choices for individuals managing CKD.
Till next time,