SFA Therapeutics YC Application

Summer 2021Active

SFA Therapeutics went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2021 batch as a Healthcare company. Below: what the company does, who founded it, and its application to YC, reconstructed question by question in the real YC form.

YC batch: Summer 2021
Industry: HealthcareTherapeutics
Team size: 4
Status: Active
Launched: 2021

Founders

Ira SpectorFounder
Alla ArzumanyanFounder
Mark FeitelsonFounder

What SFA Therapeutics does

SFA Therapeutics is creating therapeutically-tailored oral drugs that regulate the immune system; with a focus on autoimmune diseases and cancers that originate from chronic inflammation. There are over 300 million patients who suffer from autoimmune diseases. Our treatment is designed to block the root cause of many of these chronic inflammatory diseases, with safe oral drugs. We have strong clinical data from a phase 1b clinical trial in psoriasis, and human data in pancreatic cancer, uveitis and NASH. we have a total of 9 drugs in our pipeline and 15 patents.

SFA Therapeutics's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

SFA Therapeutics, Summer 2021 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

SFA Therapeutics

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Regulating the immune system to block cancer & autoimmune diseases

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

We are developing orally-administered immunoregulators targeting chronic inflammation that drives autoimmune diseases and certain cancers. Our drugs block key immune pathways causing diseases like psoriasis, pancreatic cancer, uveitis, and NASH. We already have strong phase 1b clinical data for psoriasis and a pipeline of 9 drug candidates with 15 patents.

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

We live and are based in Philadelphia, PA, USA. After YC, we plan to stay in Philadelphia to leverage local biotech resources and keep our team intact.

Explain your decision regarding location.

Philadelphia is where our founders are based and where we've built our scientific and clinical collaborations. It has a strong biotech community and is well suited for therapeutic development, so relocating after YC is unnecessary.

21 more answers in the full application

Founders, Progress, Idea, Equity, Curious, Batch Preference are in the full version. Create a free account to open it in YC Insights, next to every other YC batch.

See full application

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the real SFA Therapeutics YC application?

No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from SFA Therapeutics's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like SFA Therapeutics would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.