Cambria Biosciences Awarded Three Small Business Innovation Research Grants from National Institutes of Health for Company's Neurodegenerative Disease Program.

WOBURN, Mass. -- Cambria Biosciences LLC, a drug discovery company, today announced that it has been awarded three new Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants totaling more than $700,000 from the National Institutes of Health to support the company's drug discovery program for neurodegenerative diseases.

Parkinson's disease is the focus of two of Cambria's SBIR grants, one from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and one from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. According to the National Parkinson Foundation, 1.5 million Americans are currently afflicted by this progressive movement disorder, and 60,000 new cases are diagnosed each year. Several genetic mutations have recently been discovered to cause rare familial forms of Parkinson's disease, but environmental factors contribute to the vast majority of cases. Cambria investigators will use the SBIR funding to develop new disease models that incorporate both genetic and environmental features in order to devise more efficacious therapies for this multifactorial neurodegenerative disorder.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is the focus of Cambria's third SBIR grant, from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. ALS is a degenerative disease of motor neurons that results in progressive muscle weakness leading to paralysis and death, thereby placing enormous emotional and economic burdens on patients and their families. Cambria will seek to elucidate the molecular sites of action of riluzole, the only drug currently approved for the treatment of ALS, in order to provide insights into designing better medicines for ALS.

"Parkinson's disease and ALS represent two devastating neurodegenerative diseases for which there are currently no truly effective therapies. These NIH grants leverage Cambria's unique ability to develop predictive biological models of these diseases and to identify the molecular modes of action for promising compounds," said Leo Liu, M.D., President and Chief Scientific Officer of Cambria Biosciences.

About Cambria Biosciences

Cambria Biosciences LLC is a Boston-area biopharmaceutical company that combines the power of genetics and high-throughput chemical screening to discover new drug candidates and how they work. By characterizing the biological mechanism of each promising compound lead in living biological systems that serve as models for human disease, these technologies provide a rapid way to enhance the therapeutic potential of biologically active small molecules. The Company is applying this platform to focus on new therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases and infectious disease pests. In addition, Cambria earns revenues from corporate partnerships that leverage its technology platform for multiple applications, including agriculture and animal health. For more information, please visit www.cambriabio.com.

This release contains certain forward-looking statements which involve known and unknown risks, delays, uncertainties and other factors not under the respective company's control which may cause actual results, performance or achievements of that company to be materially different from the results, performance or other expectations implied by these forward-looking statements. These factors include results of current or pending research and development activities, actions by regulatory authorities, and other activities.