LumiThera Inc., a medical device company focused on the development of non-invasive light emitting diode (LED) treatment for ocular disorders and disease, today announced it is a recipient of a Washington State Life Sciences Discovery Award (LSDF) grant. LumiThera was 1 of 5 recipients of the LSDF grants each worth $250,000 to provide for proof of concept studies.

As stated in the LSDF press release: "LSDF created the Proof of Concept granting program to nurture the vitality and competitiveness of Washington's life sciences innovation community and help convert its 'intellectual capital' into tangible products that enhance the economic and physical health of our communities," stated John DesRosier, LSDF executive director. "By helping grantees advance their innovations from the lab into the commercial marketplace, these new awards are anticipated to improve both quality and quantity of life for individuals living with debilitating medical conditions and tobacco addiction."

"We are very honored to be a recipient of the LSDF award program.  It further validates our efforts and the need for new and early treatments for age-related macular degeneration, particularly the dry form, wherein no FDA-approved therapies exist," stated Clark Tedford, Ph.D., President and CEO. "The grant will allow us to build the unique multi-wavelength device and provides a springboard for the new company."

The grant provides for collaboration between LumiThera and Seattle-based Product Creation Studio, a design house that is providing the additional engineering resources to create the instrument. "We saw the concept that LumiThera wanted to build and were impressed with their ideas and mission to tackle global vision diseases with a non-pharmaceutical, non-invasive approach," stated Scott Thielman, Vice President, Product Creations. "We are very excited to work with them."

The grant also provides collaboration between LumiThera and Dr. Juanita Anders, Professor of Anatomy, Physiology and Genetics at Uniformed Services University of the Health Services in Bethesda and President of the American Society of Lasers in Medicine and Surgery. "Dr. Tedford, his team and I have worked in the past studying light scatter in the brain and now we will be able to investigate light scatter profiling in the eye," says Juanita Anders. "The use of low level light therapy to target key molecular endpoints involved in the AMD disease process is creative and has shown to be successful in other clinical settings."