The anti-aging company looks to the clinic with Prime Movers Lab leading the round.

Massachusets-based Elevian announced this week that it had closed $15 million equity financing, allowing it to advance recombinant growth differentiation factor 11 (rGDF11) toward the clinic to treat stroke and other age-related diseases.

Longevity.Technology: 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. Elevian has a bright future planned for rGDF11, hoping it will result in therapies that restore youthful regenerative capacity and have the potential to treat and prevent multiple age-related diseases.

Elevian’s scientific founders, working at the Harvard Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, discovered that replenishing the circulating factor GDF11 can regenerate the heart, brain, muscle and other tissues. 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, and Elevian’s 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 programmes focused on the discovery and development of novel proteins, antibodies and small molecule drugs that target the GDF11 pathway.

“The support and commitment from our new and existing investors demonstrate confidence in Elevian’s vision to treat multiple age-related diseases by targeting the GDF11 pathway…”

In conjunction with the financing, Elevian has appointed Suzanne Fletcher and Dan Marshak to its board of directors and expanded its executive leadership team to include Yongting Wang, PhD, who joins as the director of Protein Biochemistry & Neuroscience.

“Recombinant GDF11 is a novel therapy and approach to treating stroke and other age-related diseases,” says Fletcher. “Elevian has assembled a team of excellent leaders to develop this multi-disease therapy. We look forward to supporting this innovative company focused on treating devastating diseases.”

“The support and commitment from our new and existing investors demonstrate confidence in Elevian’s vision to treat multiple age-related diseases by targeting the GDF11 pathway,” says Mark Allen, MD, CEO and co-founder of Elevian.

“We are focused now on advancing our first drug, rGDF11 toward the clinic both to promote recovery after stroke and to treat obesity. The expansion of our executive team and the additions to our board of directors will help to guide Elevian as we enhance our understanding of aging and age-related diseases.”