Our mission is to protect the brain and spinal cord after injury by developing early treatments that have the potential to preserve neurological function and help people maintain their independence.
NeuroHagana is a neurotrauma-focused biotech company, developing a first-in-class injectable treatment for acute neurotrauma, designed to be given within the first hours after injury, to stop neuronal tissue damage.
NeuroHagana’s technology is built on more than twenty years of academic research led by Dr. Angela Ruban, the Company’s CEO and Co-Founder.
Our science
Brain and spinal cord injuries can cause lifelong disability, and there is still no available effective treatment that prevents or reverses it.
Worldwide, an estimated 37.9 million people live with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and 15.4 million with spinal cord injury (SCI).
The economic toll is just as large. TBI alone costs an estimated US$400 billion globally each year in healthcare and lost productivity. In the United States, lifetime healthcare and living costs for a person with severe SCI can exceed US$6 million — a lasting burden on patients, families and care systems.
Much of the final damage and the disabilities are not caused by the initial impact. Within hours of the injury, a secondary wave of damage begins: excess glutamate triggers a molecular cascade that destroys far more tissue than the original trauma.
Supportive care and rehabilitation can improve outcomes, but no approved treatment directly stops this progressive damage. That is the unmet need we are addressing.
Our approach
NeuroHagana’s emergency treatment is designed to be administered by first-aid medical teams within the first hours, and without waiting for a diagnosis. By acting at the very start of the secondary-injury cascade, it is designed to prevent damage from spreading through the neuronal tissue — like stopping a snowball before it forms.
How it works. The treatment lowers blood glutamate levels, facilitating the efflux of excess glutamate from the central nervous system across the blood–brain barrier, and thereby reducing secondary neuronal tissue damage and neuronal impairments.
Platform & pipeline
NeuroHagana’s NH01 treatment targets glutamate excitotoxicity, a common driver of neuronal damage across multiple neurological conditions. Our platform applies the same injectable formulation and therapeutic approach across five indications, with the potential to expand into a broader range of neurological disorders.
First-in-class acute neuroprotective treatment
Pre-clinical results
Neuroprotective effects and functional improvement were demonstrated in experimental treated mice and rats, with a therapeutic window of up to 8 hours.
News
A therapeutic treatment that can reduce damage to nerve cells after spinal injury, and even improve mobility.
Read the article →NeuroHagana featured in the Praxis Spinal Cord Institute focus group brochure, Toronto, Canada.
NeuroHagana’s CEO presents the company’s neuroprotective platform in San Diego, California.
A new treatment against toxic glutamate, from the Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University.
Read the feature →About us
CEO & Co-Founder
Independent neurobiology researcher at Tel Aviv University. 20 years of experience as a clinical pharmacologist with expertise in drug development; former CSO at Braintact Ltd. and scientific advisor at Yeda, the Weizmann Institute’s technology transfer office.
CFO & Co-Founder
Over 30 years of experience in international banking and finance, board directorship and corporate management across the United States, India, China and Israel.
CDO & CMC Expert
Drug development professional and biopharmaceuticals CMC expert with over 20 years of international pharma experience. Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Latvia, Riga.
VP Research & Development
15+ years in neurobiology, pre-clinical research and drug development consultancy. Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Tel Aviv University; postdoc at the Weizmann Institute and King’s College London.
Chairman
30+ years of professional experience in the academic research world in the field of contracts, research proposals and funding applications to funding bodies, optimizing academic procedures for human experimentation and the ethical aspects of research.
Independent Director
Independent director on the boards of several multinational companies such as FCA — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Prysmian. Currently serves on the boards of Luxembourg Real Estate Funds.
Advisory Board
Spine & brain injury rehabilitation specialist
Full professor with over 40 years of experience as a rehabilitation specialist dealing with spine and brain injuries using modern, innovative procedures. Head of the spine rehabilitation unit and, in the past, head of the Loewenstein Rehabilitation Clinic.
Head of Neurosurgery & Radiosurgery, San Raffaele Hospital, Milan
Head of the Neurosurgery and Radiosurgery Unit at San Raffaele Hospital, Milan, and Clinical Professor of Neurological Surgery at The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA.
Head of the Gene & Cell Therapy Institute, Hadassah Hebrew University Hospital
Full professor of Gene & Cell Therapy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a senior active physician at the Hadassah Hebrew University Hospital Liver Unit. Head of the Gene and Cell Therapy Institute at the Hadassah Hebrew University Hospital.
Pharma-biotech R&D leader, 20+ years
Has led research and development in pharma-biotech start-ups for more than 20 years, advancing academic programs from discovery to clinical proof of concept across immunology, oncology, CNS, biochemistry and cell & molecular biology — including pre-clinical development, CMC, process development, scale-up and manufacturing.
MIT · Founder & President, CONTINUUS Pharmaceuticals
MIT, Massachusetts. Founder & President at CONTINUUS Pharmaceuticals; former manager at Novartis and doctoral researcher at Merck Sharp & Dohme.
SCI Community Representative
A Paralympic gold medalist in wheelchair tennis and a former Apache helicopter pilot. His firsthand experience with neurotrauma recovery, ongoing volunteer work in neurotrauma hospital departments, and leadership of survivor expeditions worldwide provide unique insights valuable to pharmaceutical development.
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