Elysium Therapeutics Secures $7.5 Million SAFE Financing to Advance Synthetic Opioid Overdose Therapy

New updates have been reported about Elysium Therapeutics.

Elysium Therapeutics has raised $7.5 million in a SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) round to accelerate development of its lead SOOPR™ (Synthetic Opioid Overdose Protection and Reversal) program, a rescue treatment engineered to address overdoses from highly potent synthetic opioids such as oral fentanyl and emerging nitazenes. CEO Greg Sturmer said the new capital will fund preclinical and clinical work aimed at advancing SOOPR toward human studies, positioning the company to target a growing public‑health and security need as illicit markets move to more powerful compounds that challenge existing rescue agents. The financing supports Elysium’s strategy to build a differentiated portfolio around overdose rescue and safer opioid products, with SOOPR at the center as a potential new standard of care for synthetic opioid overdoses.

SOOPR is based on a proprietary naloxone prodrug formulation designed to deliver faster onset and substantially longer duration of action than current market leaders such as intranasal naloxone products. The candidate is intended to rapidly restore breathing, reduce risk of hypoxic brain injury and death, and maintain 12–24 hours of effective opioid blockade to limit re‑narcotization risk, a key limitation of short‑acting agents when confronting long‑acting or high‑potency synthetic opioids. The product’s infusion‑like pharmacokinetic profile is also designed to mitigate severe withdrawal effects associated with high‑dose naloxone or nalmefene, and to deter same‑day opioid re‑use, creating a critical window for families and clinicians to connect patients with medication‑assisted treatment. In vivo proof‑of‑concept data have shown faster onset and longer duration compared with intranasal and intramuscular naloxone, aligning SOOPR with the clinical demands of oral fentanyl and nitazene exposures. More broadly, Elysium is advancing its SMART™ (Safer Medicines Alleviate Risks and Trauma) platform, including an oral‑overdose protected (O2P™) hydrocodone candidate that has already demonstrated human proof‑of‑concept in reducing hydrocodone exposure in overdose scenarios, signaling a pipeline strategy that could create complementary assets in overdose rescue and abuse‑mitigating pain therapeutics.