LyGenesis Inc., a Pittsburgh biotechnology company focused on organ regeneration, has completed a $4 million in private financing of convertible notes from Juvenescence Ltd. and Longevity Vision Fund. This financing will enable LyGenesis’s lead program in liver regeneration to transition into clinical development, beginning with a Phase 2a clinical trial for patients with end stage liver disease in 2020.
The University of Pittsburgh spinout, founded in 2017, also raised $3 million in Series A funding from Juvenescence in May 2018.
“We have advanced our liver regeneration program through preclinical trials and this financing will help us to rapidly transition into a clinical-stage biotechnology company,” LyGenesis co-founder and CEO Michael Hufford, Ph.D., said, in a statement. “Our ability to use the lymph node as a bioreactor for organogenesis is also generating interest from partner companies looking for an enabling technology so that their genetically modified cell therapies are able to engraft, proliferate, vascularize and produce a therapeutic effect in patients.”
Juvenescence Limited is a U.K. life sciences company developing therapies to increase healthy human longevity.
Longevity Vision Fund is a $100 million life extension-focused investment fund dedicated to making longevity affordable and accessible to all. The New York fund was founded by Sergey Young.
