HexemBio Launches with $10.4M Seed Round to Advance Blood Stem Cell Rejuvenation Therapy

HexemBio emerges with a breakthrough blood stem cell rejuvenation technology led by Draper Associates and an advisory board that includes Co-Founder of Moderna

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, UNITED STATES, April 7, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- HexemBio today announced its public launch as a biotechnology company developing the breakthrough blood stem cell rejuvenation therapy, alongside the close of a $10.4 million seed round to advance its lead program toward human trials in early 2027. The round is led by Draper Associates with participation from SOSV, Seraphim, and other strategic investors.

Every blood and immune cell in the human body originates from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) deep within the bone marrow. Over time these cells decline, weakening immunity, driving chronic inflammation, and contributing to diseases across the body, from cancer to neurodegeneration. Scientists have spent decades trying to reverse this decline through gene editing, chemical treatments, or transcription-factor reprogramming. Many of these methods push cells into unstable states or introduce significant safety risks.

HexemBio takes a different approach entirely. Rather than reprogramming the aged cell, the company gives it back to the environment where young blood stem cells are born. Their technology, the Synthetic Human Yolk Sac, recreates the developmental microenvironment that generates the body’s first blood stem cells during early human development. By temporarily placing a patient’s own stem cells into this regenerative environment outside the body, the technology restores youthful function before returning the cells through a standard IV infusion.

Early results supporting the technology were published in Nature, with additional publications currently under review. Because aging itself is not currently recognized as a regulatory indication, HexemBio’s first clinical focus is improving outcomes for bone marrow transplant (BMT) in patients with blood cancers such as AML and ALL. The company’s lead program has received FDA Orphan Drug Designation for bone marrow transplant, and HexemBio has completed its FDA Pre-IND meeting, positioning the program to enter IND-enabling development.

"HexemBio discovered a way to renew a patient's own stem cells rather than chemically or genetically reprogramming them,” said Tim Draper, Founding Partner at Draper Associates. “That kind of foundational biological innovation is exactly the type of high-conviction investment we look for."

"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," said Gabriel Levesque Tremblay, CEO and Co-Founder of HexemBio. "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?"

HexemBio's advisory board includes Robert S. Langer, PhD, Institute Professor at MIT and Co-Founder of Moderna. Additional members include Peter Barton Hutt, former Chief Counsel of the FDA and current Moderna board member; Joanne Kurtzberg, MD, a leading bone marrow transplant clinician at Duke University; David Harris, PhD, founder of the first public cord blood bank in the United States; Felipe Sierra, PhD, former Director of the Division of Aging Biology at the NIH; Jens Nielsen, PhD, CEO of the BioInnovation Institute founded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation; and George Church, Professor of Genetics at the Wyss Institute and Harvard Medical School and Co-founder of Colossal.

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

HexemBio was founded by a team of scientists and entrepreneurs with deep experience across MIT, UC Berkeley, Harvard, and Y Combinator. Co-Founder and CEO, Gabriel Levesque Tremblay, PhD, brings experience as a former YC Founder and for UC Berkeley post doc and has led the company’s regulatory acceleration strategy and institutional fundraising. Co-Founder and CTO, Samira Kiani, MD, also trained at MIT and is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Mo Ebrahimkhani, MD (CSO) is a pioneer in synthetic developmental biology, MIT Trained and inventor of the technology. Joshua Hislop, PhD (AI Lead) leads the company's AI platform, including proprietary tools YolkGPT and YolkScore. Samet Yildirim, MS, MBS (CBO) a former YC founder brings drug development and commercialization expertise from Boehringer Ingelheim.

The seed funding will be used to finalize the company’s IND-enabling studies and GMP manufacturing, with the company targeting first-in-human trials in 2027.

About HexemBio

HexemBio is developing regenerative therapies based on the Synthetic Human Yolk Sac, a technology designed to rejuvenate aging blood stem cells by recreating the developmental environment where they first arise. By restoring the regenerative capacity of a patient's own hematopoietic stem cells, HexemBio aims to improve outcomes in bone marrow transplantation and unlock new approaches to extending human healthspan. The company received FDA Orphan Drug Designation in July 2025 and completed its FDA Pre-IND meeting in January 2026. Founded in 2024, HexemBio operates from Berkeley and New York City.

To learn more, visit hexemb.io.

Melissa Chin
On Top Strategy
melissa@ontopstrategy.com

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