PATIENTSLIKEME RECEIVES PRIX ARS ELECTRONICA HONORS

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Sep 9, 2008 —

PatientsLikeMe, the leading online community for patients with life-changing conditions, receives high honors from Ars Electronica, the premeire center for art and technology, this month. The Prix Ars Electronica is a highly regarded international award “for creativity and pioneering spirit in the field of digital media.” PatientsLikeMe is one of two companies to receive an “Award of Distinction” in the Digital Communities category.

According to the Ars Electronic website, the ‘Digital Communities’ category “honors important achievements by digital communities well as innovative artistic approaches towards web-based communities.” PatientsLikeMe competed against more than 220 online communities in this new category. Previous winners in this category include Wikipedia, Free Software Foundation and Akshaya.com.

“We are honored to be recognized with such a prestigious award,” says Ben Heywood, co-founder and president at PatientsLikeMe. “We strive to achieve that perfect combination of design and technology that Ars Electronic represents.”

About PatientsLikeMe

PatientsLikeMe® (www.patientslikeme.com) is the leading online health community for patients with life-changing conditions. PatientsLikeMe creates new knowledge by charting the real-world course of disease through the shared experiences of patients with ALS, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, HIV, mood conditions (including depression, bipolar, anxiety, OCD and PTSD), fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis, epilepsy and organ transplants. While patients interact to help improve their outcomes, the data they provide helps researchers learn how these diseases act in the real world. PatientsLikeMe endeavors to create the largest repository of real-world disease information to help accelerate the discovery of new, more effective treatments.