Amydis Awarded NIH Ph2A Grant for Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy
San Diego, CA, September 23, 2019: Amydis, Inc., a privately-held pharmaceutical company developing proprietary drugs to detect, monitor, and screen for amyloid-related diseases, announced today that they received a Phase 2A SBIR grant award from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant award for over $1,500,000 will continue to fund the development of a novel ophthalmic diagnostic compound for Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy (CAA), an age-associated disease in which proteins called amyloid build up on the walls of the arteries in the brain increasing the risk for stroke caused by bleeding, and dementia.
CAA is a major cause of spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage in people older than 55 and an important contributor to age-related cognitive decline. Physicians are unable to diagnosis CAA with certainty without a sample of brain tissue. Current diagnosis of CAA involves expensive imaging tests such as MRI, CT scans, and PET amyloid tests. The Amydis technology is envisioned to provide an affordable and accessible retinal imaging test as a welcome addition to the armamentarium of tools available to physicians.
“We are honored that the NIH has again selected Amydis for continual support. It will allow us to accelerate the development of our lead compound toward clinical trials,” stated Stella Sarraf, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Amydis, Inc. “We hope our test will serve as an outcome marker in clinical trials and catalyze the development of potential therapeutics that can stop or reverse progression of the disease.”
Steven M. Greenberg M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School & Director of the Hemorrhagic Stroke Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and a leading CAA authority who is unaffiliated with Amydis said, “I am excited the NIH is continuing to support Amydis. I am keenly aware of the challenges CAA patients face in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. I believe that diagnosis of CAA through the eye would be a tremendous step forward for the field and I believe the CAA community will be eager to help the Amydis team pursue their vision of a novel diagnostic probe.”
Disclosure
Research reported in this grant publication is supported by the National Institute On Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R43AG058350 & R44 AG058350-02. The content is solely the responsibility of the Company and Principal Investigators and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
About Amydis
Amydis is leading the way for early detection of diseases through the eye that is accessible, affordable and non-invasive. The company is developing proprietary ocular tracers that enable identification of molecular biomarkers for diseases of the eye, heart and brain. Amydis is creating a data warehouse for multi-omics that includes unique molecular biomarkers of the eye to empower AI-enabled health insights. The Company’s digital health solutions leverage the eye as the “window to the body” to accelerate diagnoses, enable precision treatment and improve patient outcomes. For more information contact: info@amydis.com
