Agile Sciences Receives Grant From Bay Area Lyme Fund

Online, January 22, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Agile Sciences announced today that it has been awarded a grant from the Bay Area Lyme Fund to evaluate a novel therapeutic approach for treating Lyme disease. Agile Sciences will test its proprietary small molecules for their ability to enhance the effectiveness of existing antibiotic therapies against the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which is the causative agent of Lyme disease in the United States.

Lyme disease is the most prevalent tick-borne disease in the Northern Hemisphere, and it is estimated that at least 100,000 people contract the disease in the United States each year, possibly as many as 360,000. Although treatment of early Lyme disease is generally successful with antibiotics, 10-20% of patients will continue to suffer from the debilitating symptoms despite antibiotic treatment.

Agile Sciences' molecules have been shown to inhibit bacterial defense mechanisms, including biofilm formation, so as to increase the susceptibility of bacteria to antibiotic regimens. Agile Sciences is currently developing these molecules to provide effective therapeutic options for bacterial infections that are currently untreatable due to antibiotic resistance. Funding from the Bay Area Lyme Fund will enable Agile Sciences to evaluate whether the company's molecules will inhibit B. burgdorferi's protective mechanisms so that this pathogen may respond better to antibiotic therapies.

Dr. Eva Garland, Agile Sciences' Vice President of Research and Development, stated, "Agile Sciences is grateful for the support of the Bay Area Lyme Fund. We are eager to evaluate the ability of Agile Sciences' technology to provide a better treatment option for patients suffering from Lyme disease."

"Finding better treatment options for Lyme sufferers is a key part of our mission to make Lyme disease easy to diagnose and simple to cure," said Ana Thompson, Executive Director at the Bay Area Lyme Fund. "We are thrilled to support Agile Sciences as it applies its technology to this vexing problem."

About Bay Area Lyme Fund:

Bay Area Lyme Fund, located in Silicon Valley, CA, was founded to drive the development of novel therapies and effective diagnostics for Lyme disease and to deliver state of the art prevention information. To learn more, please visit www.bayarealyme.org. Bay Area Lyme Fund is a 501c3 public benefit corporation.

About Agile Sciences:

Agile Sciences is headquartered on North Carolina State University's Centennial Campus. The company was founded in 2007 to provide commercial solutions to those industries plagued by the effects of biofilms. The company's proprietary compounds have been shown to be effective in overcoming bacterial resistance mechanisms. For additional information, please visit: http://www.agilesci.com