US-based pharmaceutical company EydisBio announced on Wednesday that it has received USD0.5m Phase one Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute on Aging (NIA).

The company has received the grant to support its research into new therapeutic approaches for Alzheimer's disease, concentrating on the inhibition of TGF Beta-activated protein kinase 1 (TAK1).

The project is to be carried out in partnership with Dr Jun Ninomiya-Tsuji and her team at North Carolina State University, who are concentrating on understanding the molecular mechanisms of TAK1 and its role in driving various inflammatory-diseases.

The Phase I SBIR grant is to fund further preclinical studies to validate these findings and identify lead compounds for future development. This project intends to generate critical preclinical data on the viability of targeting the TAK1 pathway as a novel therapy for Alzheimer's disease.