Adventris Pharmaceuticals

Adventris makes cancer vaccines

Y CombinatorWinter 2023ActiveHealthcareDrug Discovery and DeliveryBiotechHealthcareTherapeuticsDrug discovery

What they do

Problem

Cancer vaccines struggle to effectively target poorly immunogenic oncogenes, limiting prevention and treatment of many cancers.

Solution

The company develops off-the-shelf cancer vaccines using a platform designed to elicit immune responses against oncogenes such as KRAS.

Who it's for

Clinicians and healthcare systems administering vaccines to cancer patients and, long-term, to adults for annual cancer prevention.

Founders

Jen Herbach

Founder

Jen Herbach is the CEO of Adventris Pharmaceuticals. She has more than a decade of biotech industry experience bringing novel oncology drugs to market, across companies including Onyx/Amgen, InterMune/Genentech, Exelixis, and Amunix. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Masters from the University of Cambridge.

William Collis

Founder

William Collis is a serial entrepreneur with multiple exits, most recently the data platform Genji. His research has been published in Harvard Business review and featured as a TED talk with over 1.5M views. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was named a Baker Scholar. He is lifelong friends with his co-founders Jen Herbach and Mark Yarchoan, since meeting as roommates at Amherst College.

LinkedIn · X

Mark Yarchoan

Founder

Mark Yarchoan, M.D, is an Associate Professor of Medical Oncology at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Yarchoan runs an NCI-funded laboratory focused on developing novel immunotherapies, with a focus on cancer vaccines. He has led multiple international clinical trials of immunotherapy agents including neoantigen-targeted cancer vaccines. Dr. Yarchoan has received multiple honors, including the ASCO Young Investigator Award and the ASCO Career Development Award.