RenewalBio is targeting longevity with a unique bio-manufacturing platform for human cells, including your own young blood cells.
Last month, hot on the heels of the recent Nature paper on replacement as an aging intervention, we came across Israeli biotech RenewalBio, which had just secured funding from longevity investment fund LongGame. The company, a spin out from the lab of renowned stem cell scientist Professor Jacob Hanna at the Weizmann Institute of Science, is focused on enhancing regenerative medicine by pioneering a new class of differentiation platform using developmental models that mimic human embryo development.
RenewalBio is focused on addressing the global shortage of transplantable cells and tissues, as well as tackling age-related decline and infertility, leveraging groundbreaking advances that have enabled the creation of highly realistic development models from stem cells alone, without the need for eggs, sperm or a uterus. The company is initially using these so-called “stembroids” to develop new, young blood cells for the treatment of bone marrow failure, with clinical trials expected within two years. But RenewalBio believes there is much more to come from its technology.
Longevity.Technology: Derived entirely from human pluripotent stem cells, stembroids are grown in a lab environment, mimicking the development of natural embryos up to key stages of development. RenewalBio is primarily focused on leveraging its technology to produce high-quality human cells and envisions using stembroids as a universal platform for producing authentic, transplantable cells for a host of potential applications in human health. We sat down with the company’s co-founder and CEO Vladik Krupalnik to find out more.
The work being conducted at RenewalBio builds on Professor Hanna’s wealth of published research, which demonstrated the ability to culture mouse embryo models from stem cells through key stages of organogenesis in a mechanical womb. These models developed beating hearts, circulating blood and even cranial folds, all without fertilization or a maternal environment.
According to Krupalnik, Hanna’s work has been central to unlocking the potential of stem cell pluripotency, especially the elusive ‘naïve’ state in human stem cells, and formed the cornerstone of what would eventually become RenewalBio’s technological platform. “Jacob aimed to understand if these early-stage naïve conditions could be recreated outside the body, in laboratory dish cultures,” says Krupalnik.
Embryonic ‘Lego bricks’
A critical breakthrough came in 2013 when Hanna’s lab succeeded in generating human stem cells with earlier developmental markers, creating what Krupalnik calls the first set of “Lego bricks” for building embryonic and extra-embryonic tissues.
“We have four types of bricks – one that builds the embryo, two that build the yolk sac and umbilical cord, and one that builds the placenta,” he says. These components, when merged through a process known as aggregation, allowed the team to mimic early stages of human development, reaching what Krupalnik refers to as a “day 14 developmental model” or “stembroid.”
The ability to generate stembroids led to the creation of what Krupalnik calls “a natural bio-manufacturing platform.”
“Our goal isn’t to create life or complete embryos that will go to term, but to generate medically valuable cells,” he says. “We are a therapeutics company that develops high-grade cellular therapies for regenerative transplant medicine.”
RenewalBio operates within a strict 40-day development window, ensuring it remains within established ethical and regulatory guidelines. The company is initially targeting the key 28-day development milestone, when specialized cells like blood cells emerge.
Early focus on blood cells
At this early stage, RenewalBio’s primary focus in terms of therapeutic application is addressing bone marrow failure, a condition where patients lose the ability to produce blood and immune cells. Because the cells used for its technology are derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs), this allows for the creation of personalized, immunologically matched treatments, without the need for invasive procedures or donor dependence.
“Our solution is a natural fit for bone marrow failure, because we can provide young, identically matched blood cells,” says Krupalnik. “Once we have your IPSCs, we can generate large volumes of your own young blood.”
The ability to generate young blood cells alone will be of keen interest to many in the longevity sector, which has been transfixed by the potential of “young blood” since the heterochronic parabiosis experiments, which showed that infusing the blood of young mice appeared to rejuvenate older ones.
“We’re basically able to do the same thing, but we don’t need the young donor, we just produce your own young, identical blood,” says Krupalnik, emphasizing that this isn’t theoretical or speculative: blood cells will be RenewalBio’s first product line. “Of course, we realize this is also a great fit for the longevity field, and this is why most of our investors, like LongGame, are also coming at this from a longevity perspective.”
Nature knows best
While many regenerative medicine efforts rely on overgrowing stem cells in bioreactors, introducing risks of mutation and high costs in quality control, Krupalnik says that RenewalBio’s approach avoids that by integrating holistic differentiation and growth within the stembroid development itself. Moreover, because the cells are genetically identical to the patient and not overgrown in bioreactors, a process that often introduces mutations, they maintain high quality and low immunogenicity.
At the heart of the company’s philosophy is the belief that nature itself, if properly supported, knows best how to generate functioning cells.
“We’re not enforcing anything,” says Krupalnik. “We give nature the right conditions and then nature does the rest. We just collect the stembroids at the right time and harvest the cells that we need.”
Beyond blood cells, RenewalBio’s stembroids already produce a diverse array of cell types, including endothelial, muscle, neuronal, pancreatic and liver cells, all from the same platform. “Basically, a stembroid is a cell factory, generating many different cell types simultaneously,” says Krupalnik.
FDA discussions underway
While the company plans to develop some of these cells into its own therapeutic products, it is also actively seeking partnerships and out-licensing opportunities. “We need someone that will take the neurons, develop and test them, and we need someone to take the muscle cells to do the same,” he explains, suggesting that the company could eventually become a platform provider for the broader cell therapy industry.
RenewalBio is currently raising its seed funding round, with the goal of funding the company through pre-IND and potentially IND stages within the next two years. Discussions with the FDA are already underway, and Krupalnik indicates that the rare disease designation for bone marrow failure may allow the company to leverage regulatory shortcuts to accelerate clinical testing.
Reflecting on the recent Nature paper, Krupalnik suggests that RenewalBio has the potential to become the “next big thing” in replacement therapy.
“We will provide the cells, we will produce them younger, healthier and probably with higher potency,” he says. “We see ourselves playing a key role in the future of stem cell regenerative medicine and longevity treatments. It all starts with stembroids.”
Article photographs courtesy of RenewalBio
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