HexemBio Emerges from Stealth Mode with $10.4 Million Raised for Blood Stem Cell Rejuvenation Therapy Development

Key findings

• HexemBio has raised $10.4 million in seed funding to advance a blood stem cell rejuvenation platform
• The company is developing an ex vivo approach that aims to restore aging hematopoietic stem cells before reinfusion
• Its lead program, focused on bone marrow transplant outcomes in blood cancers, has received FDA Orphan Drug Designation

HexemBio has emerged from stealth with $10.4 million in seed funding to advance a blood stem cell rejuvenation therapy platform. The round was led by Draper Associates, with participation from SOSV, Seraphim, and other strategic investors.

The company is focused on aging hematopoietic stem cells, which generate the body’s blood and immune cells. As these cells decline over time, they are associated with weaker immune function, chronic inflammation, and a range of diseases, including cancer and neurodegeneration.

How the platform works

HexemBio is developing an approach that differs from gene editing or chemical reprogramming. Instead, the company says it recreates the early developmental environment in which blood stem cells are first formed.

Its Synthetic Human Yolk Sac platform places a patient’s own stem cells into that environment outside the body, with the goal of rejuvenating them before they are returned through a standard IV infusion.

“Most innovations in bone marrow transplant rely on the use of harsh treatments such as high levels of cytokines, or genetic engineering which can stress or often exhaust stem cells. Our co-founders asked a different question: what if we simply gave aging stem cells back the environment they had at the beginning of life?” Gabriel Levesque Tremblay, CEO And Co-Founder, HexemBio

Development plans

HexemBio plans to initially target bone marrow transplant outcomes in patients with blood cancers including acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). According to the company, its lead program has received FDA Orphan Drug Designation and completed a Pre-IND meeting, setting it up for IND-enabling studies ahead of planned human trials in early 2027.

The company also says preclinical results supporting the platform have been published in Nature, with additional studies under review.

“Recreating the developmental environment where blood stem cells are first produced represents a fundamentally new strategy. It is very different from transcription-factor reprogramming or gene editing, and the early data are extremely compelling.” Robert S. Langer, Institute Professor, MIT, And Co-Founder, Moderna

Team and financing

The founding team includes researchers and operators with backgrounds at MIT, UC Berkeley, Harvard, and Y Combinator. CEO and co-founder Gabriel Levesque Tremblay has led regulatory and fundraising efforts, CTO and co-founder Samira Kiani is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and chief scientific officer Mo Ebrahimkhani is credited by the company as the inventor of the core technology.

HexemBio says the seed financing will support IND-enabling studies and GMP manufacturing as it moves toward first-in-human trials.

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