VCU startup grabs military attention, funding

A discovery by a Virginia Commonwealth University research scientist that could revolutionize the treatment of massive blood loss injuries is receiving major support from the military.

In August, the U.S. Air Force awarded a $1.8 million grant to Perfusion Medical, a company co-founded by Martin J. Mangino with support from the VCU TechTransfer and Ventures office. The grant brings total military support for Perfusion to $7 million since 2023.

Mangino, a professor of surgery, physiology and biophysics at the VCU School of Medicine, has dedicated his 40-year career to researching ischemic repercussion injuries caused by lack of oxygen to tissues following medical emergencies such as heart attacks, strokes and trauma.

“The mechanisms are poorly understood,” Mangino says. “That’s why we can’t treat it clinically very well.”

The current treatment for massive blood loss is saline or blood transfusions, neither of which address the closing of tiny capillaries, an underlying cause of ischemic repercussion injuries. Mangino’s new drug, PM-208, is an intravenous infusion of polyethylene glycol, perhaps best known as the active ingredient in the pre-colonoscopy prep drink GoLYTELY.

Known as a “cell impermeant,” it pulls water out of cells and into capillaries, preventing ischemic injury. The polyethylene glycol polymer in PM-208 has a larger molecular weight than GoLYTELY, and experiments on animal models show the drug significantly extends the survivability of massive blood loss.

“It worked geometrically better than anything else that we tried,” he says.

The implications of the discovery were immediately apparent to Ivelina Metcheva, assistant vice president for innovation at VCU and head of the TechTransfer and Ventures office, which works with about 120 VCU researchers each year to commercialize inventions.

“This particular invention was very unique because it really had a pain in the market,” Metcheva says. “It was really needed.”

With financial support from Metcheva’s office, Mangino co-founded Perfusion Medical in 2020 with veteran tech entrepreneur Gerard Eldering, who serves as the company’s CEO and is ushering the drug through the FDA approval process. Eldering expects Phase 1 clinical trials to begin in early 2025 and sees opportunity for big success for VCU and the state.

“There’ve been some other good success stories recently, but we just want to build on that and show the world that there’s great things happening in life sciences in Virginia,” Eldering says.