From Acute Response to Meaningful Recovery: NeuroHagana’s Human-Centered Approach to Acute SCI Care
In the first few hours after a spinal cord injury (SCI), everything is fragile, the body is unstable, decisions must be made quickly, and the future feels uncertain. Yet these early moments quietly shape what recovery may be possible years down the line. For people living with SCI, damage does not end at the initial trauma. A cascade of secondary complications follow, influencing long-term function, independence, and quality of life.
She watched people survive the initial trauma, only to have their lives reshaped by secondary complications that medicine struggled to prevent. That experience shaped two decades of research in drug development, centered on a single question: how can we protect the nervous system when it is most vulnerable?
Before joining the Praxis SCI Incubate Program, the team had a strong foundation in emergency medicine and preclinical science. What they had not fully confronted was the complexity of designing clinical trials that truly reflected what mattered to people with lived experience (PLEX) of SCI.
Like much of the field, early thinking centered on traditional functional scores and motor outcomes. Through Praxis’ Innovation program and direct engagement with PLEX and their caregivers, that framing began to shift.
“Functional recovery is only one part of what matters to people living with SCI,” Dr. Ruban reflects. “Through the focus groups, we learned that what looks like success on a score sheet can feel very different in daily life.”
For people living with SCI, damage does not end at the initial trauma. A cascade of secondary complications follow, influencing long-term function, independence, and quality of life.
Participants spoke about bladder control, hand function, sexual health, neuropathic pain, and small quality-of-life details that rarely take center stage in early trial design. The team also learned that priorities change over time. What matters most to someone recently injured may differ significantly from the priorities of someone living with SCI for years. This challenged the assumption that a single primary endpoint could capture meaningful impact across populations.
One insight proved especially transformative. While administering treatment in ambulances seemed efficient from an emergency medicine perspective, PLEX expressed discomfort with consenting in that environment. Many said they would trust decisions guided by clinicians or the s SCI community more than family members who might be in shock.
“We realized we hadn’t gone deep enough into how people actually experience these decisions,” Dr. Ruban says. “That changed how we think about trust, consent, and trial logistics.”
These insights drove NeuroHagana to reshape its clinical trial strategy to include a broader set of meaningful secondary endpoints, from electrophysiological measures to patient-reported outcomes. Traditional functional scores would still play a role, but no longer as the sole lens.
The team also started preparing PLEX-friendly materials early, recognizing that recruitment may occur within hours of injury, when clarity and trust are critical. Safety trials are now planned in healthy volunteers first, alongside exploration of international regulatory pathways that better align with the realities of emergency care.
Today, NeuroHagana is advancing toward early clinical development with a more grounded, human-centered strategy. Proof-of-concept success in traumatic brain injury has opened additional opportunities for non-dilutive funding and co-development, helping de-risk the path forward while maintaining spinal cord injury as a priority indication.
Grounded in lived experience, NeuroHagana now advances with a clearer definition of success. The team is not only focused on speed in an emergency, but on ensuring that early intervention translates into meaningful, lasting impact.
Clinical development brings unavoidable complexity, from trial design to regulatory pathways and funding. What the Praxis program provided was a way to validate core assumptions before those choices became irreversible.
About NeuroHagana
NeuroHagana translating to “NeuroDefense”, is an innovative biotech company founded on the pioneering research of Dr. Angela Ruban at Tel Aviv University in Israel. They are developing a first-in-class, injectable neuroprotective treatment designed for immediate and simple administration following any type of neurotrauma, regardless of severity. Their solution aims to minimize neurological damage, prevent long-term disabilities, and significantly improve patient outcomes, addressing one of the most critical gaps in emergency medicine.
About the Praxis SCI Accelerate Program:
The Praxis Spinal Cord Institute’s Incubate Program is a four-month Program geared towards prototype stage projects with innovation to transform the lives of people with spinal cord injury. The Program provides targeted end-user product validation, research, mentorship support, tailored mentorship, expert guidance, and access to their commercialization network.