Two VCU-born startups win state grants to move healthcare innovations toward human trials

By John Battiston

Two companies built on Virginia Commonwealth University research have each received $800,000 from Virginia Catalyst, and the grants could advance a surgical hydrogel and a trauma resuscitation drug on the path toward testing in humans.

Pascal Medical Corp. and Perfusion Medical were among three companies awarded in Virginia Catalyst's latest, $2.4 million funding round, announced in July by Gov. Abigail Spanberger. Founded in 2013, Virginia Catalyst invests in life sciences throughout the state, and it is funded by the General Assembly and five member institutions: VCU, the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, George Mason University and Old Dominion University.

Virginia Catalyst requires substantive collaboration between at least two member institutions, and both Pascal and Perfusion are connected to VCU and UVA. Both companies have advanced with commercialization support from VCU TechTransfer and Ventures, part of the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation. The awards are nondilutive, requiring no equity in return.

Pascal's surgical gel

Pascal Medical's ClickGel is an injectable biomaterial that forms a stable matrix inside the body, sealing surgical wounds and delivering therapeutics precisely where they are placed. Because it is regulated as a premarket approval product, it faces an especially demanding review before it can enter humans.

"Securing this grant from Virginia Catalyst is a pivotal validation of our work. It signals to investors that we have moved beyond theoretical research and are effectively derisking our technology for clinical application," said Barbara D. Boyan, Ph.D., co-founder and chief scientific officer of Pascal. She is also executive director of VCU's Institute for Engineering and Medicine and is the Alice T. and William H. Goodwin Jr. Professor in the College of Engineering's Department of Biomedical Engineering.

The Virginia Catalyst award will fund a large-animal study assessing ClickGel's safety and effectiveness, plus manufacturing the gel and its applicator exactly as they would be produced for people - a prerequisite for the Food and Drug Administration submission that would authorize a human trial. Pascal is working with Justin S. Smith, M.D., Ph.D., a neurosurgeon and chief of the spine division at UVA.

The latest award marks Pascal's third Virginia Catalyst grant, following a $375,000 award in 2022 and an $800,000 award in 2024. On its own, the most recent award has helped Pascal raise an additional $3 million.

"The Catalyst funding is a major milestone for Pascal," CEO Thomas Gardner said in a statement. "It allows us to move ClickGel into critical surgical testing and accelerate our timeline toward FDA submission, bringing a new standard of care much closer to patients."

Perfusion's resuscitation drug

Perfusion Medical's PM-208, invented by VCU School of Medicine professor Martin J. Mangino, Ph.D., is a first-in-class intravenous therapy for shock and ischemia. It aims to reduce how much donated blood a trauma patient requires, and it has already received substantial federal funding.

Where blood is critical or scarce, such as on the battlefield or in rural areas, the innovation could have an enormous impact.

"I heard about a physician manning a small hospital in a rural area over the Fourth of July weekend," said Gerard Eldering, CEO of Perfusion and entrepreneur-in-residence at TechTransfer and Ventures. "He said, 'I've got two units of O-positive blood. If we get a major car accident, I'm in trouble.'"

A drug that stretches a limited blood supply could change that assessment. If PM-208 can stabilize a patient on fewer transfused units, those units go further - and a remote hospital has a better chance of sustaining the patient until transport to the nearest trauma center.

The Virginia Catalyst grant will fund animal studies at UVA quantifying the drug's blood-sparing effect, conducted alongside Andrew E. Muck, M.D., an emergency physician and former Air Force doctor. Perfusion filed its investigational new drug application in June and expects to open it this fall.

For Eldering, the motivation comes from the clinicians who have seen the data.

"I've heard from multiple physicians about patients they had who bled out - who wouldn't have died if they had PM-208," he said. "If that doesn't motivate you, nothing will."

VCU's real-world impact

Pascal and Perfusion are based in Virginia and funded substantially by Virginia sources.

"At VCU, research isn't meant to stay on the bench; it's meant to transform human lives," said P. Srirama Rao, Ph.D., vice president for research and innovation. "Securing Virginia Catalyst awards is a major milestone for our startups because it provides the rigorous, nondilutive capital needed to complete advanced preclinical studies and reach the clinic.

"This level of investment signals to the broader market that VCU-born innovations are both scientifically sound and commercially scalable, driving economic growth across the commonwealth while accelerating treatments that directly address critical healthcare gaps."

For Pascal's Boyan, whose lab continues to generate new applications for ClickGel, the reward reflects not just the hard work of researchers but of VCU's youngest minds.

"My students are co-inventors on the ClickGel patents," she said. "I am incredibly proud of their intellectual contributions, which underscore the vital role academic environments play in fostering groundbreaking solutions."