What You Should Know:
– Revalia Bio Inc., a new pre-clinical research company secures $14.5M in seed funding round to support the launch of its “Human Data Trials”.
– The funding was co-led by America’s Frontier Fund and Sierra Ventures, with participation from Roger Ferguson, former Vice Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, and other existing investors. This brings Revalia’s total funding to $19.5M.
A New Paradigm for Pre-Clinical Research
The investment comes at a crucial time for the pharmaceutical industry, where more than 90% of drug candidates fail to reach market approval despite billions spent on R&D each year. A key reason for this high failure rate is the poor translation from preclinical models to human biology.
Revalia was founded by a multidisciplinary team that includes CEO Greg Tietjen, a former professor at Yale with a background in perfusion science, and Kourosh Saeb-Parsy, who serves as the company’s Chief Medical Officer. Revalia is addressing this breakdown by delivering on-demand access to functional human data through its Human Data Trials. These trials involve rigorous testing conducted on perfused, human organs that are maintained under clinical conditions. The organs are donated with informed consent and would otherwise be unusable for clinical transplant, allowing donors and their families to leave a lasting legacy by contributing to the next generation of curative therapies.
Traction and Future Vision
Since launching commercially in 2023, Revalia has quadrupled its revenue and recently signed two of the world’s top 10 pharmaceutical companies as customers. The company has also developed a first-of-its-kind human lung cancer model and achieved key breakthroughs in organ perfusion, including a four-day kidney protocol.
Revalia aims to be the foundational infrastructure for Human-Centered Drug Development, offering the insights and data needed to shift drug development away from animal models and toward truly human-first decision-making.
