Bexorg Awarded Up to $28.3 Million from ARPA-H to Advance Human Brain Translational Pharmacology for CNS Drug Development

- Three-phase, 36-month award aims to extend BrainEx perfusion from 24 hours to up to two weeks, enabling longitudinal studies of human brain biology and therapeutic responses -

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Oct. 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bexorg, Inc., a precision neurology company integrating proprietary AI with an intact whole human brain translational platform to advance CNS drug discovery and development, today announced it has been awarded up to $28.3 million in funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The funding will support a three-phase, 36-month project which aims to extend BrainEx perfusion from 24 hours up to two weeks, creating a longer window for longitudinal studies of human brain pharmacology. This capability would broaden the therapeutic mechanisms Bexorg is able to evaluate directly in intact human brains, including responses to repeated dosing and sustained drug exposure, as well as mechanisms of action whose effects emerge beyond the current 24-hour window. This enhanced technology would complement Bexorg’s NeuroScale brain slice and NeuroLens AI platforms.

Bexorg’s integrated translational engine enables direct, responsible therapeutic testing in ethically donated postmortem human brains, including longitudinal molecular measurements and AI-enabled analyses. The extended study window would create rich longitudinal human brain multi-omics datasets that could be used to train and refine AI models, characterize biomarkers and exposure-response relationships over more clinically relevant time courses, while deepening the understanding of how disease-associated molecular pathways and therapeutic responses evolve over time.

“Brain diseases represent one of the greatest unmet needs in human health. Overcoming the failures that typically derail development programs requires a fundamentally different approach. We are building this approach by combining direct access to human brain biology with AI, grounding decisions about which medicines to advance and how to develop them in human evidence,” said Zvonimir Vrselja, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Bexorg. “Receiving this ARPA-H award underscores what we believe is a larger shift in CNS drug discovery and development, with greater emphasis on the direct evaluation of human biology and pharmacology versus traditional animal models before clinical trials. We are deeply grateful for this support and remain focused on translating it into meaningful progress against brain diseases that affect millions of people and their families.”

Dr. Vrselja continued: “Every study begins with an extraordinary gift from a donor and their family, and that comes with a tremendous responsibility. As the science advances, we have to be equally thoughtful with respect to how these capabilities are developed and used, how donated tissue is stewarded, and how we maintain the trust of donors, families, patients and the broader community.”

Key objectives in the three-phase, 36-month project include validating sustained brain physiology for up to two weeks with automated perfusion and assessing how drug responses and biomarkers in the BrainEx platform align with known clinical outcomes. The project will also evaluate combination therapies, supporting the study of complementary mechanisms relevant to Alzheimer’s disease and other CNS disorders. Together, these efforts aim to strengthen the human pharmacological evidence used to inform dosing strategies, biomarker selection and clinical trial design.

“Many disease processes and therapeutic effects unfold over days and cannot be adequately studied within a 24-hour window,” said Bruce Car, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Bexorg. “Longer perfusion allows us to examine how human CNS pathology and drug responses change over time within the brain’s native cellular and vascular architecture. Linking these observations to longitudinal molecular data will help close the translational gap between preclinical findings and clinical development. The integrated application of enhanced whole brain (BrainEx) outputs, together with NeuroScale and NeuroLens platforms has the potential to significantly reduce attrition in CNS drug discovery and development.”

The ARPA-H award builds on Bexorg’s growing body of human brain pharmacology data and marks the next step in expanding BrainEx as a longitudinal data-generation platform. By bringing together whole-human-brain studies, therapeutic perturbation, longitudinal multi-omic data and AI, Bexorg is building a more precise approach to translational pharmacology. This approach will help bridge the significant ongoing translational gap that exists between preclinical CNS research and clinical development.

About Bexorg
Bexorg is a precision neurology company advancing CNS drug discovery and development through human brain translational pharmacology and AI. Founded at Yale University by Zvonimir Vrselja, M.D., Ph.D., and Nenad Sestan, M.D., Ph.D., Bexorg combines intact whole human brain studies, longitudinal molecular data generation and AI-enabled analysis to guide candidate selection, translational studies, and clinical development. The company is building a portfolio of in-licensed CNS programs alongside partnered programs that are uniquely enabled by Bexorg’s platform. The platform has demonstrated meaningful external validation, including Biohaven’s BHV-8100, the first therapeutic candidate characterized using Bexorg’s platform before first-in-human dosing. BHV-8100 is currently in a Phase 1 clinical trial and leveraged BrainEx data to support the successful IND filing. The company is led by an experienced team spanning neuroscience, engineering, drug development, and commercialization. Bexorg operates within a rigorous legal and bioethics framework, guided by an independent board of experts and grounded in responsible donor-consent practices. For more information, visit www.bexorg.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

This research was funded, in part, by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Government.

Contacts:

Argot Partners
bexorg@argotpartners.com