Kivu Bioscience is a clinical-stage biotechnology company in San Mateo, California, building next-generation antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for solid tumors. Founded by BioGeneration Ventures and led by ADC veteran Mohit Trikha, the company licenses Synaffix's GlycoConnect and HydraSpace site-specific conjugation technology to engineer more homogeneous, stable ADCs that aim to widen the therapeutic window - hitting tumors harder while sparing healthy tissue. Backed by a $92 million Series A led by Novo Holdings, Kivu has moved its lead candidates KIVU-107 (PTK7) and KIVU-305 (CEACAM5) into Phase 1 clinical trials.
CatenaBio is a UC Berkeley spinout building a next-generation bioconjugation platform for targeted cancer therapies. Its proprietary CysTyr platform uses an engineered enzyme, Catenase, to forge a site-specific bond between cysteine and tyrosine residues (the C-Y Bond) using only native amino acids. This lets the company attach multiple different drug payloads to a single antibody, producing Multi-Payload Conjugates (MPCs) designed to overcome tumor resistance where conventional single-payload ADCs fall short.