Vivere Oncotherapies, a UC Berkeley spin-out focused on reprogramming the immune system to recognize and destroy cancer, has raised more than $10 million to advance a new generation of immunotherapies for some of the deadliest solid tumors.

 

The funding round includes backing from YK Bioventures, Pillar, Berkeley Frontier Fund, Freeflow Ventures, and the National Cancer Institute. The capital will fuel development of Vivere’s engineered immunotherapy platform, designed to expose so-called immunologically “cold” tumors—cancers that evade immune detection and resist existing treatments.

 

Cold solid tumors, including colorectal and ovarian cancers, remain among the most challenging in oncology. These cancers lack immune-cell infiltration, rendering widely used immunotherapies such as checkpoint inhibitors largely ineffective. After decades of research, patients facing these diagnoses often have few viable treatment options and poor outcomes.

 

“Vivere’s goal is to empower the patients’ immune systems to fight off cancer. Our team is united by a belief that cold tumors are not inherently untreatable, just misunderstood,” said Melissa Kotterman, CEO of Vivere Oncotherapies. 

 

“We’ve spent years building a platform capable of breaking through the immunological invisibility of these tumors. With the support of our investors, we’re now poised to bring a new generation of targeted immunotherapies to patients who currently have no effective options.”

 

Founded on technology developed at UC Berkeley, Vivere is engineering targeted immunotherapies intended to safely and precisely unmask tumors to the immune system. The company’s approach aims to overcome the biological barriers that have stalled progress against cold tumors for years.

 

“Building Vivere’s platform has been about rethinking what’s possible in cancer therapy. From its early days, the vision was to build a platform that could finally unmask cold tumors to the immune system through improved delivery of targeted and safe therapies,” said David Schaffer, Co-founder of Vivere Oncotherapies.

 

"Our team’s rare combination of engineering, immunology, and translational expertise paired with our experience in building clinical-stage biotech companies gives us the tools to tackle problems others have deemed intractable.”

 

With fresh capital in hand, Vivere plans to accelerate its research and move closer to delivering novel treatments for patients facing cancers that have long defied the immune system—and modern medicine.