SelSym Biotech gains backer to develop novel bleeding therapeutic
Durham-based SelSym Biotech, a biomedical company with roots at North Carolina State University, has secured an equity investor and partner to help it develop a novel therapy to control emergency bleeding.
SelSym will be backed by Persephoni BioSciences, a firm in Research Triangle Park (RTP) that provides venture capital and scientific, regulatory, operational and technology support to promising bioscience companies.
SelSym, a pre-clinical stage company founded in 2019, is developing SymClot, a synthetic therapy that mimics key functions of blood platelets to control bleeding and promote wound healing.
"We've been intentional about who we partner with, and Persephoni's ethos aligned with our mission from the start: getting SymClot to the patients who need it, faster,” said Seema Nandi, Ph.D., co-founder and chief executive officer of SelSym Biotech. “This investment is our first equity funding, and it validates years of work getting SelSym to this point. With Persephoni's team and resources alongside our own technical expertise, we're ready to move SymClot toward the clinic.”
SelSym will relocate from downtown Durham to join Persephoni’s team in the Alexandria Center for Advanced Technologies at 8 Davis Drive in RTP.
"We're proud to welcome SelSym into the Persephoni family,” said Hilary Schultz, chief executive officer of Persephoni. “They've proven what disciplined science and capital efficiency can achieve, the same discipline that is foundational to our model. Together, we'll take it further. As lead investor and strategic partner, we will open all of Persephoni’s capabilities, infrastructure, platforms and technologies to enable SelSym to move more efficiently to inflection and patients."
Neither company disclosed the amount of the equity investment.
SymClot mimics platelets
SymClot is an injectable, biomaterials-based therapeutic inspired by the form and function of platelets, the body's native clotting cell fragments. It consists of synthetic platelet-like particles made from ultrasoft microgels coupled to antibody fragments that bind to fibrin, a protein formed at a bleeding site that causes blood cells to clot.
SymClot is designed for use in a wide range of uncontrolled bleeding scenarios, including trauma and emergency care, surgery, bleeding disorders, and postpartum hemorrhage.
The current medical practice of infusing patients with donated platelets to control bleeding has limitations. Banked platelets have a short shelf life, depend on donor supply, and require blood typing before use, leaving hospitals and emergency responders vulnerable to shortages, particularly outside controlled hospital settings.
If approved for human use, SymClot would offer potential advantages over platelet infusions. The product is shelf-stable, does not require blood typing before use, and can be given at the point of injury.
About 30 million Americans live an hour or more away from a level-one trauma center, and SymClot could help stabilize bleeding in patients during that critical time, company co-founder and biomedical engineer Ashley Brown, Ph.D., said in a company profile published by NC State earlier this year.
The science behind SymClot originated in Brown's Advanced Wound Healing Lab at NC State and has been validated in mouse, rat and pig models of trauma. Results have been published in Science Translational Medicine and Nature Materials.
SymClot has not yet been tested in human clinical trials.
In addition to Brown and Nandi, other co-founders of SelSym include company President Andrew Lyon, Ph.D., a chemistry and engineering professor at Chapman University, and Thomas Barker, Ph.D., a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Virginia.
SelSym’s research has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Defense (now the Department of War), and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.
NCBiotech also provided a $100,000 Small Business Research Loan to SelSym in 2022 to support the development of SymClot.
SelSym is the fifth bioscience company to join Persephoni’s portfolio. The others are LampRNA Therapeutics, Telos Therapeutics, InnoVira and Monarch Therapeutics.
Persephoni was founded in 2024 and lists 18 team members on its website. The company’s mission is to transform breakthrough science into high-impact biotech companies and therapeutics by partnering with academia, investors and industry.
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