Petition to remove John Butler as Chairperson for Kidney Car Partners.

John Butler currently serves as Chairperson for Kidney Care Partners, a non-profit organization committed to the advocacy of patients suffering from kidney disease. The organization also serves as a coalition of professionals, from front line health care workers to therapeutic innovators, serving those afflicted with kidney disease.

John Butler also currently serves as President and CEO at Akebia Therapeutics, which hopes to innovate therapies for those afflicted with kidney disease. One such therapy, Vadadustat, was under consideration by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to treat anemia caused by Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) for those on and not on dialysis. Mr. Butler and Akebia announced on March 30, 2022 that Vadadustat was deemed unsafe for use in the dialysis and non-dialysis dependent anemia populations by the FDA despite Mr. Butler's and Akebia's long and continued support of the product. Not only does this show that Mr. Butler and Akebia tried for years to bring an unsafe product to market in a population Kidney Care Partners is an advocate for, but that Mr. Butler also used his role at Kidney Care Partners to forge alliances with partners of the organization (Vifor, Otsuka, Fresenius) in the hopes pushing Vadadustat onto as many CKD sufferers as possible. 

We call upon Kidney Care Partners to remove John Butler as Chairperson in recognition of his long-standing support of an unsafe product in the use to treat sufferers of anemia due to CKD.