The Lyme Disease Issue

A Widespread Systemic Infection Antibiotics Don't Always Resolve

Lyme disease is far more common than official counts suggest, and a meaningful share of treated patients don't fully recover.

United States

~476K

Americans estimated to be diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease every year — roughly five times the number of cases formally reported.

5–20%

Of patients treated with guideline-recommended antibiotics still develop Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome.

Worldwide

~132K

Lyme borreliosis cases reported to European surveillance systems annually, with 30% of the European population living in a high-incidence region.

1M+

Estimated people affected by Lyme borreliosis worldwide each year under conservative global models.

Antibiotics Don't Resolve Every Case

Standard-course antibiotics are effective for many patients, but a meaningful subset continue to experience disabling symptoms long after treatment ends.

No Systemic Thermal Option Exists

Unlike oncology, there is no closed-loop, whole-body thermal therapy available today for patients with persistent or treatment-resistant tickborne infection.

Treatment Response Is Hard to Track

There is no real-time biomarker feedback loop to confirm whether an infection has been cleared, or to guide how long treatment should continue.

Care Often Ends Without Resolution

Many patients are told their antibiotic course is complete even as symptoms persist, with few systemic options left to explore afterward.

Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, is known to be sensitive to elevated temperature — part of the rationale behind decades of historical interest in fever and hyperthermic therapy for spirochetal infections. Based on anecdotal clinical evidence, PyRxia^™'s adaptive hyperthermic platform, originally developed for oncology, may offer a novel systemic approach worth exploring for persistent Lyme disease, that antibiotic-only regimens cannot fully address.*

*This represents an early-stage opportunity area for the platform, not a current or approved indication.

Sources — prevalence and clinical burden: Kugeler KJ, et al., "Estimating the Frequency of Lyme Disease Diagnoses, United States, 2010–2018," Emerging Infectious Diseases (CDC); CDC, Lyme Disease Surveillance and Data; Bay Area Lyme Foundation, Lyme Disease Facts and Statistics; CDC, Chronic Symptoms and Lyme Disease; Adrion ER, et al., "Health Care Costs, Utilization and Patterns of Care following Lyme Disease," PLOS ONE; "Lyme Disease and Post-treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome: Current and Developing Treatment Options," PMC; "What Makes It Tick: Exploring the Mechanisms of Post-treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome," PMC; Davidson A, et al., "Lyme Borreliosis Incidence Across Europe, 2015–2023," Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases; Burn L, et al., "Incidence of Lyme Borreliosis in Europe from National Surveillance Systems (2005–2020)," Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases; "Estimates for Lyme Borreliosis Infections Based on Models Using Sentinel Canine and Human Seroprevalence Data," ScienceDirect. Historical and mechanistic rationale for hyperthermic therapy: "Julius Wagner-Jauregg (1857-1940): Introducing Fever Therapy in the Treatment of Neurosyphilis," PubMed; Tsay CJ, "Julius Wagner-Jauregg and the Legacy of Malarial Therapy for the Treatment of General Paresis of the Insane," Yale J Biol Med; "Therapeutic Hyperthermia for the Treatment of Infection — A Narrative Review," Frontiers in Physiology; Cluss RG, et al., "Thermoregulation of Protein Synthesis in Borrelia burgdorferi," PubMed; "Profiling of Temperature-Induced Changes in Borrelia burgdorferi Gene Expression by Using Whole Genome Arrays," Infection and Immunity.