San Diego based Stemson Therapeutics has raised US$7.5M in its seed funding round on 15 September 2020. The funding round was led by Allergan Aesthetics, an AbbVie Company and impact investor Fortunis Capital.
The funds will help the firm to advance the development of Stemson’s therapeutic solution to cure hair loss and also expand its management team and R&D resources. The seed funding will further enable the preclinical development of Stemson’s Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell based technology, which can produce the cell types required to initiate hair follicle growth.
About Stemson Therapeutics
Founded in 2018 by Geoff Hamilton and Alexey Terskikh, Simon Therapeutics has a novel cell engineering process that is capable of producing the cell types required to regenerate hair follicles. The firm realised the emotional trauma and social stigma some people go through due to hair loss. They claim to truly care for their condition and hence have come up with a solution to restore their natural hair. Their novel approach uses the patient’s own cells.
They have also received an approval of a foundational patent recently. As a result it will provide Stemson with stability surrounding the Company’s efforts.
“Stemson has established the biological and technical building blocks which are needed to solve the problem of hair loss. A truly curative solution is now feasible and we have built a world-class team to deliver a therapy for the millions of hair loss sufferers across the world,” said Geoff Hamilton, CEO of Stemson Therapeutics.
“Stemson’s novel cell therapy approach to treat hair loss has game-changing potential. Their experienced management team is poised to elevate its proprietary regenerative cell therapy method as it begins the next phase of its preclinical program,” said Sir Andrew Ross, Director of Investments at Fortunis Capital.
About the founders
Geoff Hamilton– Geoff Hamilton is also the Chief Executive Officer of Stemson Therapeutics. He has 20 years of product commercialization and business executive experience. He has spent the last 15 years in life science and biotech companies. Before founding Stemson, Geoff was working at Illumina, a Fortune 500 company and world leader in DNA sequencing technology. During his time at Illumina, he launched three instrument platforms. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Alexey Terskikh– Alexey V. Terskikh, PhD, is also the Chief Scientific Officer of Stemson Therapeutics. He developed the founding technology of Stemson Therepeutics. Dr. Terskikh is also an Associate Professor at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP). His research is based on molecular mechanisms underlying self-renewal and differentiation of neural stem cells. He completed his postdoctoral training at Stanford University and earned his PhD in molecular immunology at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland).
