Cell therapy · Liver disease
HepaTx
A Stanford spinout turning liposuction fat into liver cells, aiming to replace a transplant with an infusion. A decade in it holds patents in three countries and a Mayo Clinic license, plus two employees and no registered trial.
Nine days, starting from fat
In October 2013, a team in Gary Peltz’s lab at Stanford published a method for turning stem cells pulled out of routine liposuction waste into working liver cells. The trick was a suspension technique Peltz called spherical culture. It skipped the pluripotent stage entirely, which meant it skipped the tumor risk that comes with it.
Speed was the headline. The older chemical method took 30 days or more and converted about 12 percent of the cells. Peltz’s method took nine days and converted 37 percent, and by publication he said improvements had pushed the yield past 50 percent in seven to eight days.
“We believe our method will be transferable to the clinic,” Peltz told Stanford’s news office. “And because the new liver tissue is derived from a person’s own cells, we do not expect that immunosuppressants will be needed.”
Two years later, four people licensed it out of Stanford.
The arithmetic of a waiting list
The liver is the one organ with real regenerative capacity, and the one organ with exactly one disease-modifying therapy. Transplant works. There are not enough livers.
Stanford’s account of the 2013 work put the United States figures at roughly 6,300 transplants a year, about 16,000 people waiting, and more than 1,400 deaths a year among them. HepaTx’s website states a far wider gap: 200,000 Americans in late-stage failure each year, 15,000 who make the list, 6,000 matched in time. Those are company-stated numbers, and the site does not source them.
Eric Schuur, the co-founder who has run the company for most of its life, was more conservative in 2018: “The number of people who would benefit from a liver transplant exceeds the number of transplants available by 10-fold to 20-fold.”
Eighteen hundred technologies
HepaTx did not begin with a scientist looking for a company. It began with a team looking for a technology.
“The HepaTx co-founders met through a translational research training program offered by Stanford University’s Office of Technology Licensing,” Schuur said. “We reviewed 1800 technologies that Stanford had available and chose the one that eventually became the foundation for HepaTx to work on.”
Crunchbase lists four co-founders: Bruce Davis, Eric Schuur, Mark Chao and Pier Federico Gherardini. Peltz, the inventor, sits on the scientific advisory board rather than the cap table, alongside Marie Csete, the first chief scientist at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and Scott Friedman of Mount Sinai, whose fibrosis work founded a field.
Two chief executives, and a change of plan
In April 2021 the company hired Salah Kivlighn as CEO, a Merck and Kite veteran whose record included Losartan and RotaTeq. Schuur moved to president and chief operating officer, responsible for “finalization of the preclinical package and IND filing of HepaTx first clinical candidate.”
What followed was patent work rather than clinical work: a US grant in May 2022, Japan in March 2022, Canada in August 2023, all on one family covering hepatocyte-like cells from adipose stromal cells. By September 2024 Schuur was CEO again and Kivlighn had gone.
The science moved too. The 2013 result was autologous: your own fat, your own cells, no immunosuppression. HepaTx now describes Hx-001 as an off-the-shelf allogeneic product from donor lipoaspirate. “Our allogeneic cell therapy product can be distributed for on-demand availability,” the company says. That is a better business and a harder immunological problem, and no data addressing it has been published.
Mayo Clinic, and a clock that ran out
On September 10, 2024 HepaTx signed a license agreement with Mayo Clinic. Mayo would bring regulatory affairs, cGMP biomanufacturing and trial infrastructure and would lead the early studies, infusing patients with alcohol-related hepatitis. HepaTx would bring the cells.
Five weeks later, pitching the BIO Investor Forum on October 15, 2024, the company told investors that “Hx-001 is being developed in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic and is expected to complete Phase I clinical trials in 18 months.” Eighteen months from that date is April 2026. As of September 23, 2026, ClinicalTrials.gov returns no studies for HepaTx by name or as sponsor.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Registered trials | ClinicalTrials.gov queried Sep 23, 2026 by term and by lead sponsor: zero studies. No IND clearance announced. | Public record |
| Phase I timing | The company told investors in October 2024 that Phase I would complete in 18 months, about April 2026. Nothing registered in the 23 months since. | Claim differs from record |
| FDA records | No 510(k), no PMA. A cell therapy would travel by biologics license application instead, but no IND acceptance has been reported. | Not found |
| Federal grants | Four NIH SBIR Phase I awards, $699,755 total: NIAAA $149,699 (FY2017, PI Mark Chao); NIGMS $225,024 (FY2019); NIDDK $175,964 and $149,068 (FY2025, FY2026), the last running to April 30, 2027. The live award builds a blood test to monitor transplanted cells, not the therapy. | Public record |
| Granted patents | US 11,291,691, Japan 7057797, Canada 2,959,117, all composition of matter for hepatocyte-like cells from adipose stromal cells. | Public record |
| Peer-reviewed output | Two PubMed items with company authors: a literature review in Cells (2022) and a letter in Hepatology (2022). No primary efficacy paper found. | Public record |
| Preclinical data | The company states in vitro and in vivo data showing reduced liver damage and inflammation in animal models, and that “The in vitro results we observed are consistent with results observed in a mouse model of acute liver injury”. Unpublished. | Company-stated |
| Mayo Clinic license | Announced Sep 10, 2024. Mayo confirmed it Dec 2, 2024, disclosed a financial interest, and said it will lead the early trials. | Partner-confirmed |
| Finances | Form C, Sep 14, 2026: revenue $0 both years, net loss $246,314, cash $131,898, total assets $195,955, debt $5,202,846, two employees. | Public record |
Read plainly: the founding science is real, peer-reviewed and protected in three jurisdictions. Everything downstream is intention. No first-in-human dose, no IND on the record, no company-authored efficacy paper. The Mayo license is the strongest signal here because Mayo is an independent institution that took a financial interest and said publicly it will run the trials. What is missing is the trial.
What to watch
- A ClinicalTrials.gov registration naming Mayo Clinic and alcohol-associated hepatitis. That single event moves this company from claim to evidence.
- Whether the crowdfunding offering clears its $1,235,000 maximum by April 30, 2027. At the current burn that is about four years of survival, not a completed trial.
- The NIDDK award ending April 30, 2027. It funds an engraftment assay that does not yet exist and that a first-in-human study would need.
- Any published preclinical package. A large animal study would close the widest gap in the record.
In their words
“We believe our method will be transferable to the clinic”
Gary Peltz, MD, PhD, technology inventor, Stanford Medicine news, 2013 · Independent
“The number of people who would benefit from a liver transplant exceeds the number of transplants available by 10-fold to 20-fold.”
Eric Schuur, co-founder and CEO, Technology Networks, 2018 · Interview
“We reviewed 1800 technologies that Stanford had available and chose the one that eventually became the foundation for HepaTx to work on.”
Eric Schuur, Technology Networks, 2018 · Interview
“Once we have done these things, we will apply for permission to test the cells in patients with acute liver failure.”
Eric Schuur, Technology Networks, 2018 · Interview
“We are very pleased to have the opportunity to work with the outstanding researchers at Mayo Clinic to advance these potentially transformative therapies to the clinic,”
Eric Schuur, on the Mayo license, PR Newswire, 2024 · Company release
“We engage with investigators at proof of concept. We guide the technology through process development to identify any gaps in safety that could delay regulatory approval for a clinical trial”
Julie Allickson, PhD, CTO, Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Biotherapeutics, Mayo Clinic News Network, 2024 · Partner institution
“This patent protects HepaTx’s unique approach to manufacturing Hepatocyte-like cells and builds on our recent patents issued in Japan and other regions.”
Salah Kivlighn, PhD, then CEO, PR Newswire, 2022 · Company release
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordForm C, Hepatx Corporation, CIK 0002148890
- Public recordForm D, Bioverge Funds, HepaTx I, LLC
- Public recordClinicalTrials.gov API v2, term and sponsor queries
- Public recordEDGAR full text search for HepaTx
- Public recordNIH RePORTER 1R43AA026475-01
- Public recordNIH RePORTER 1R43GM134809-01
- Public recordNIH RePORTER R43DK139879
- Public recordInduced Hepatocyte-like Cells from Mesenchymal Stromal Cells, PMID 35805080
- Public recordLetter to the editor, PMID 35202492
- IndependentA Mayo Clinic collaboration studies engineered stem cells for liver disease
- IndependentResearchers demonstrate efficient method for converting fat cells to liver cells
- InterviewDeveloping Stem Cell Therapy Solutions for Liver Disease
- IndependentHepaTx Corporation on Wefunder 2026
- IndependentGil Seton Jr. on HepaTx’s Collaboration with the Mayo Clinic
- IndependentHepaTx company record, founders and status
- IndependentHepatx company page, batch, team size and location
- CompanyHepaTx Enters Collaboration with Mayo Clinic
- CompanyHepaTx appoints Salah Kivlighn as new CEO
- CompanyUS patent 11,291,691 announcement
- CompanyJapan patent 7057797 announcement
- CompanyCanadian patent 2,959,117 announcement
- CompanyHepaTx Corporation profile and Hx-001 Phase I claim
- CompanyHepaTx website: home, about, science, team, media
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
