The New York biotech turning drug-resistant tumors into treatable targets - by finding the right cancer-specific epitope, then building the antibody to match it at atomic resolution.
Most cancer drugs work - for a while. Then the tumor learns, and the therapy stops. That failure mode, drug resistance, is the reason a large majority of cancer patients eventually run out of options. Sanavia Oncology, a biotech headquartered at 430 E 29th Street in Manhattan, was built around that uncomfortable statistic: roughly 80% of patients don't benefit from existing treatments. The company's stated aim is to find and target the right epitope for the patients everyone else routes around.
What sets Sanavia apart is where it starts. Rather than picking a known target and racing to a molecule, the company treats target discovery itself as the bottleneck worth solving first. Its proprietary platform hunts for unexplored, clinically relevant, cancer-specific epitopes hiding inside drug-resistant tumors - then generates antibodies with atomic-level specificity to hit them. The result is a pipeline of next-generation immunotherapies drawn from a single discovery engine.
The interesting targets in oncology aren't exactly hidden - they're unstable, hard to image, or buried in resistant tumors. Sanavia's answer is to stack tools that were rarely combined for drug discovery: high-throughput sequencing to survey the biology, single-molecule super-resolution microscopy to see proteins at a scale usually reserved for fundamental cell biology, 3D protein modeling to understand structure, and artificial intelligence to validate targets and design against them. Novel in vivo models replicate cancer biology to test whether a target holds up.
The payoff is speed and precision. Traditional drug programs can take a decade and offer a single shot on goal. By fixing the upstream problem - reliably finding stable, first-in-class epitopes - Sanavia says it can uncover target-specific epitopes faster, cut cost and risk in early development, and advance several candidates at once.
Every patient deserves a cure. And everyone deserves hope.
Single-molecule imaging locates cancer-specific epitopes at atomic-level detail on the cell surface.
Surveys tumor biology at scale to surface unexplored, clinically relevant targets in resistant disease.
Structural modeling and machine learning validate targets and guide antibody design against them.
Purpose-built models replicate cancer biology to confirm targets before programs advance.
Sanavia is developing antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), bispecific T cell engagers (TCEs) and CAR-T cell therapies aimed at novel, stable, first-in-class epitopes in validated cancer targets. The lead program, SANA-01, is an ADC built against a single cancer-specific epitope that appears across a striking range of solid tumors.
Antibody drug conjugate targeting a novel cancer-specific epitope shared across lung, TNBC, ovarian, colon, pancreatic and gastric cancers.
Bispecific antibodies that redirect T cells against stable, first-in-class epitopes in validated targets.
Engineered CAR-T candidates aimed at the same class of novel epitopes identified by the platform.
Sanavia's ultimate beneficiaries are cancer patients - especially the non-responders and those whose disease has grown resistant across lung, breast, ovarian, colon, pancreatic and gastric cancers. Commercially, the company sits in the fast-moving field of AI-enabled antibody discovery and next-generation immuno-oncology, alongside platform players building therapeutics with computation and structural biology. Its natural counterparties are pharmaceutical and biotech partners for co-development and licensing.
The differentiator is the starting point. Where many programs compete over the same well-known targets, Sanavia's pitch is that its multi-modal discovery platform surfaces epitopes others can't see - and that a stable, first-in-class target is the best defense against the resistance that eventually undoes so many therapies.
Sanavia was founded and is led by Server Ertem, Founder & CEO. The roughly 14-person team pulls immunologists, structural biologists, drug developers and AI scientists from Rockefeller University, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Columbia University and Weill Cornell Medicine, alongside veterans of Amgen, Genentech, Roche and Gilead. The company is backed by Two Bear Capital, a venture firm that invests at the intersection of biology and technology, with total funding reported around $26M.
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, building Sanavia around drug resistance as the central problem to solve.
Lead backer supporting science-driven companies at the biology-technology frontier.
Scientists from Rockefeller, MSK, Columbia and Weill Cornell, plus big-pharma drug developers.
Sanavia reported a venture round; total funding reported around $26M, backed by Two Bear Capital.
Featured among exhibitors and presenters at the industry's flagship convention.
Appeared again on the BIO 2026 program as an emerging oncology company.
It develops next-generation cancer immunotherapies - ADCs, bispecific T cell engagers and CAR-T - by discovering novel, cancer-specific epitopes in drug-resistant tumors and building antibodies with atomic-level specificity to them.
SANA-01 is Sanavia's lead antibody drug conjugate, aimed at a novel cancer-specific epitope found in a high percentage of patients across lung, TNBC, ovarian, colon, pancreatic and gastric cancers.
Server Ertem is Founder and CEO. The team includes scientists from Rockefeller, MSK, Columbia and Weill Cornell, plus veterans of Amgen, Genentech, Roche and Gilead.
It is backed by Two Bear Capital, a venture firm focused on the intersection of biology and technology, with total funding reported around $26M.
It is headquartered in New York City at 430 E 29th St, New York, NY 10016.