SAN DIEGO, July 10, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Amydis, Inc., a privately-held pharmaceutical company developing proprietary chemistry and innovative approaches for the detection of amyloid-related diseases, announced today that they received a grant award from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. Amydis will explore the use of their platform technology to develop an ophthalmic test to identify patients at risk for Parkinson’s disease (PD). Amydis is targeting the detection of the biomarker alpha-synuclein, the amyloid protein associated with PD.
“We are honored to receive this highly competitive grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation, the largest non-profit funder of Parkinson’s research,” stated Stella Sarraf, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Amydis.
Dr. David Boyer, world-renowned retinal specialist, clinician, and surgeon, shared, “I am keenly aware of the challenges PD patients face in the diagnosis and treatment of the disease. I believe the Amydis approach to detecting a biomarker indicative of PD through the eye would be a tremendous step forward for the field.”
PD is the second most common neurodegenerative disease and affects more than 6 million people worldwide. People with PD start experiencing symptoms later in the course of the disease, when a significant amount of the dopamine-producing neurons have already been lost or impaired. Currently, diagnosis at an early stage is difficult. The development of a retinal diagnostic test would address this unmet medical need.
“Parkinson’s disease represents a major public health issue. Clinically meaningful interventional research has to date been hampered by the lack of early diagnostic capacity,” said Steven Schwartz, MD, Ahmanson Professor in Ophthalmology and Chief, Retina Division at the Jules Stein Eye Institute, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “Lack of a validated biomarker and inability to make reliable, early diagnosis has greatly slowed clinical research. As such, the Amydis test addresses a highly impactful barrier in the race towards meaningful intervention.”
About Amydis, Inc.
Amydis, Inc., founded in 2013, is an early stage, privately-held company focused on its platform of innovative chemistry to detect diseases that involve the presence of amyloid proteins. Amydis has a platform of novel compounds that fluoresces when bound to amyloid proteins, thus enabling non-invasive diagnosis of such diseases. The Company’s most advanced program targets early detection of Alzheimer’s disease. Other development programs include the detection of Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and Pre-eclampsia, all of which are associated with the presence of amyloid proteins. For more information on Amydis, please visit http://amydis.com/.
Amydis Contact:
David H. Crean, Ph.D.
Chief Business Officer
david@amydis.com
858-245-4905