AR Innovates | Arkana Laboratories: Pathology Powering Precision Medicine

Arkana Labs histotechnician operating electron microscope to identify ultrastructural abnormalities. (Photo provided)

Arkana Laboratories is working to revolutionize the landscape of renal and neuromuscular health care. As a leading center for esoteric pathology, its core mission is enhancing patient care and eradicating rare kidney and neurological disease. Backed by a team of world-class pathologists, the practice continues to expand, driving progress in disease comprehension, understanding the etiology of renal and neural diseases, and working with partners around the world to find new therapeutics.

What problem is your technology and/or innovation solving in your industry or within your company? Describe the challenge. As we move into an era of precision medicine, we need to know the root cause of a patient’s disease to know the prognosis, how to follow and treat, and to be able to offer a more specific therapy. Improving patient care at Arkana consists of patient-driven teaching and learning initiatives, world-class diagnostic services and our global Food and Drug Administration- and General Data Protection Regulation-compliant Contract Research Organization service that specializes in clinical trials diagnostics and patient-matching. Every advancement at Arkana Laboratories serves one unifying passion: to work toward research breakthroughs that will one day make our services unnecessary.

What’s the big idea your team came up with? Describe how the product/service was developed and what it does. Founded by Dr. Patrick Walker, Arkana Labs was built on the belief that patients shouldn’t have to wait weeks or even days for medical biopsy results. Specializing in kidney and neuromuscular disease, our laboratory processes kidney biopsies and calls in results to the treating physician the same day we receive the sample. Neuromuscular biopsies are completed within two days. This means kidney patients get results within 24 hours of their biopsy procedure. Serving more than 700 hospitals across 46 states, we are the largest renal pathology lab in the country, bringing same-day service to more than 40% of the U.S. market a year.

What have been the results in the marketplace or within your company? Describe how the tech/innovation has disrupted industry or internal operations. On a diagnostic level, we have revolutionized the speed of testing in renal and neuromuscular pathology. Twenty years ago, waiting one to two weeks for results was common. Today, that should be one to two days.