Century Health and Balboa Nephrology to advance RWE and AI-driven insights for chronic kidney disease research

Century Health and Balboa Nephrology have announced they are partnering to apply AI to real-world data (RWD), transforming unstructured clinical information into actionable evidence to advance research, improve patient care, and accelerate drug development for chronic kidney disease and related conditions.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects more than 35 million Americans and presents with wide variability in causes, rates of progression, and clinical symptoms — factors that make diagnosis and treatment especially complex. To address these challenges, Century Health, a health technology company specializing in AI-enabled RWD analytics, has partnered with Balboa Nephrology, one of the largest independent nephrology practices in the US.

Through this collaboration, Balboa Nephrology will use Century Health’s clinical AI models to analyze electronic health records (EHR) and extract detailed, previously inaccessible information from unstructured data sources such as physician notes and lab reports. This information will help researchers better understand disease progression, treatment effectiveness, and patient outcomes in CKD and related conditions, including IgA nephropathy, lupus nephritis, and C3 glomerulonephritis.

Using its proprietary Century Health Abstraction and Retrieval Model (CHARM), the company applies disease-specific, high-accuracy processing to unstructured clinical notes and reports. CHARM can aggregate and contextualize longitudinal data such as estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), proteinuria, biopsy findings, medications, and comorbidities. By integrating these variables, the system delivers a clearer and more comprehensive picture of disease progression, helping to distinguish short-term fluctuations from meaningful changes in kidney function.

“Working with Balboa Nephrology, one of the largest providers of kidney care in the country, allows Century Health to apply our AI capabilities at scale to ultimately benefit patients,” said Vish Srivastava, Co-Founder and CEO of Century Health. “By unlocking difficult-to-capture variables, our platform delivers the insights researchers and life sciences partners need to better understand CKD progression and accelerate new treatment development.”

Terry Behrend, Chief Medical Officer at Balboa Nephrology, added: “At Balboa, our foremost commitment is to our patients. By working with Century Health’s platform, we can contribute to essential research that translates real-world patient experiences into improved care and better treatment options across the spectrum of kidney disease, from early diagnosis to post-transplant care.”

All analyses will use de-identified patient data in accordance with HIPAA standards. The partnership aims to enhance understanding of CKD, enable more precise research, and help bring effective new therapies to patients more quickly.