Elevian, an Allston, MA-based biotech company developing medicines that restore youthful regenerative capacity with the potential to treat and prevent multiple age-related diseases, closed a $15m equity financing.
The financing, including conversion of prior notes, was led by Prime Movers Lab and involved the participation of Bold Capital Partners, For Good Ventures, Kizoo Ventures, Lauder Partners, Longevity Fund, SavEarth Fund, WTI, and several prominent angels.
In conjunction with the financing, Elevian has appointed Suzanne Fletcher and Dan Marshak to its board of directors. Fletcher is a general partner at Prime Movers Lab, investing in breakthrough scientific startups, with 20 years of experience working in the technology and investment space. Biotech industry veteran Marshak is a former senior executive at PerkinsElmer, Cambrex Therapeutics and Osiris Therapeutics and sits on the board of Tecan Group, InVivo Therapeutics, and LifeVault Bio. Marshak will advise Elevian in its biopharmaceutical manufacturing program.
The company intends to use the funds to advance recombinant GDF11 (rGDF11) toward the clinic to treat stroke and other age-related diseases.
Elevian also expanded its executive leadership team. Yongting Wang, Ph.D. has joined as the director of Protein Biochemistry & Neuroscience. Dr. Wang leads Elevian’s protein biochemistry efforts, including the production and scale-up of rGDF11, as well as leading Elevian’s preclinical neuroscience development programs, including stroke. After a post-doc from MIT, Dr. Wang was formerly professor of neuroscience at Shanghai Jiaotong University, investigating the mechanism of injury and repair after ischemic stroke.
Led by Mark Allen, M.D., CEO and co-founder, Elevian is a biotech company developing medicines that restore youthful regenerative capacity, with the potential to treat and prevent multiple age-related diseases. Elevian has acquired exclusive, worldwide rights to Harvard’s patent portfolio concerning circulating factors that regulate aging. The company is developing new medicines that target the GDF11 pathway. Its lead drug candidate (recombinant human GDF11) has demonstrated efficacy in preclinical models of stroke, obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart failure, Alzheimer’s disease, and many other age-related diseases.
The company has also established additional programs focused on the discovery and development of novel proteins, antibodies and small molecule drugs that target the GDF11 pathway.
FinSMEs
26/11/2020