Amydis Awarded NIH Grant for Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy

Amydis has 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," said Stella Sarraf, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Amydis. "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. We ultimately envision it becoming widely used as a simple and low-cost screening test."

"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," 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 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."

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