Elevian is an emerging biotech focused on restoring youthful regenerative capacity by targeting the GDF11 pathway. Its lead program is recombinant human GDF11 aimed at enhancing stroke recovery and has shown efficacy in preclinical ischemic and hemorrhagic models by promoting vascular repair, reducing inflammation, and stimulating neurogenesis. Preclinical data also indicate benefits in animal models for glucose metabolism, obesity, cardiac hypertrophy, skeletal muscle repair, exercise capacity, and other age-related conditions. Elevian has acquired exclusive, worldwide rights to Harvard's GDF11 patent portfolio; its scientific founders worked at the Harvard Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. The company will use the new funding to submit an IND, scale manufacturing, and complete Phase 1 clinical trials for its lead stroke-recovery indication. The financing and board additions underscore investor confidence in Elevian's strategy to target fundamental aging mechanisms rather than single diseases. Elevian is developing medicines intended to restore youthful regenerative capacity by targeting the GDF11 pathway. Its lead candidate is recombinant human GDF11 (rGDF11), which has demonstrated efficacy in preclinical models of stroke, obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart failure, Alzheimer’s disease and other age-related conditions. The company has acquired exclusive, worldwide rights to Harvard’s patent portfolio concerning circulating factors that regulate aging. Elevian has additional programs focused on discovery and development of novel proteins, antibodies and small molecule drugs that target the GDF11 pathway. The company intends to use the new funding to advance rGDF11 toward the clinic to treat stroke and other age-related diseases. Elevian is led by CEO and co-founder Mark Allen and is based in Allston, MA. Elevian is developing medicines that treat aging by restoring regenerative capacities through modulation of growth differentiation factor 11 (GDF11), a factor the team first published on in 2013. In preclinical tests, recombinant GDF11 administered to older animals stimulated stem cells and produced benefits including reduced cardiac hypertrophy, improved skeletal muscle repair, enhanced brain function and metabolism, reversal of renal and pulmonary disease, and tumor suppression. The company plans to develop therapies that regulate GDF11 and other circulating factors and expects heart disease to be its first clinical indication. Elevian intends to start a human clinical trial in two years and estimates a roughly 10-year regulatory path to market given separate trials will be needed for different indications. The first-generation therapy is a natural protein replacement that will be expensive and require frequent (daily) dosing; the company is already working on a second-generation monthly injection and exploring oral formulations. To date Elevian has raised $5.5 million in funding.

Total raised

$61M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Sep 2021