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Dozens of surgical procedures require doctors to connect two pieces of tissue together in a delicate stitching process. It happens in triple heart bypass, C-sections, and surgeries to repair hernias and tendons. Today, those procedures are mostly done by surgeon-controlled robots or by hand, and the margin for error is small. Even small errors in suturing or stapling can lead to leaks with devastating consequences to patients.
SanaHeal wants to make connecting tissues more like using tape. The company has developed a bioadhesive technology that can rapidly stick to wet and uneven surfaces and form air- and fluid-tight seals to simplify surgical procedures. The company’s product, first developed at MIT, was inspired by sticky materials in nature like barnacles and spider webs.
SanaHeal’s technology has already gained regulatory approval to stop trauma bleeding, and next year it will enter human trials to help control bleeding during surgeries and for repair of various injured tissues.
The startup, which collaborates with larger companies for clinical trials and commercialization, believes those applications only scratch the surface of the technology’s potential.
“If someone is struggling to put something on biologic tissues, we can help,” SanaHeal founder and chief technology officer Hyunwoo Yuk SM ’16, PhD ’21 says. “The current way of doing this is by suturing through tissues, which is painful and difficult to do perfectly during surgery. Our solution is more like a Post-it note. It’s much less invasive and easier to use with surgical robots. Also, faster and more efficient surgical procedures have potential to help lower ever-increasing costs of surgeries that are significantly straining the health care system.”
A sticking problem
Yuk conducted his master’s and PhD in the lab of Xuanhe Zhao, MIT’s Uncas (1923) and Helen Whitaker Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Initially, his research focused on the mechanical properties of soft materials called hydrogels, but about halfway through the program, he pivoted to study their biomedical applications, in part motivated by a serious accident his family member was involved in.
“We were looking at how to make these hydrogels better adhesives, and because we are in Boston, we started working with doctors and medical schools in the surrounding area,” Yuk recalls.
Those conversations made him realize how often surgeons have to seal or attach tissues. That process usually involves staples or sutures, which can cause more damage to tissues, trigger immune responses, and lead to scar tissue or infections.
“These are often tiny tissues that sometimes require needles thinner than a human hair to be used during microsurgery,” Yuk explains. “They are very difficult surgeries, and they can lead to all kinds of complications.”
Yuk realized his hydrogels offered a better solution. The materials, which are made from polymers and water, are biocompatible, meaning they minimize immune responses and scar tissue buildup. Early versions of the technology acted like double-sided tape, absorbing water from wet tissues using polyacrylic acid — an absorbent material used in diapers — to adhere to them in a matter of seconds.
Yuk had planned to stay in academia after his PhD, but as he learned more about what it would take for the technology to reach patients, he decided to focus on leading that work.
“It’s very difficult for innovations to make it into the clinic and help patients if you’re in an academic research lab,” Yuk says. “We didn’t know anything about startups, so we used resources like MIT’s Deshpande Center, the Venture Mentoring Service, and MIT’s Technology Licensing Office in hope that there might be external interest in our technology. We quickly learned the regulatory hurdles presented too much risk at the early stages for potential partners, so we had to commercialize it ourselves.”
The founders received funding from the Deshpande Center to start developing the company. SanaHeal was officially formed in 2021.
Yuk and his collaborators initially focused on applying their technology to wounds to stop bleeding. But they soon shifted to focus on surgical applications, which are more numerous.
“It’s a major unmet need,” Yuk says. “We are giving surgeons more options for a host of complex procedures. They are really excited about this.”
Partnering for impact
SanaHeal provides its technology to larger medical device company partners, who are developing products for a wide range of applications including in open, laparoscopic, and endoscopic surgeries as well as in combination with existing devices for sutureless implantation in applications like hernia and nerve repairs.
“We have envisioned ourselves as a platform company from the beginning,” Yuk says. “We don’t have the resources to develop 10 products at once, so we partner with bigger companies to commercialize solutions.”
Yuk, who has been working on the technology for nearly a decade, admits the commercialization process has taken longer than he expected. But he believes the payoff — seeing a technology he first developed in a lab have an impact on patients — will make the journey worth it.
“My life goal as a researcher is to see the full lifecycle of a new technology, from the scientific discovery, to research, to understanding how it works, to engineering it, to working with subject matter experts, and finally developing a product that gets approved to help humans,” Yuk explains. “It’s rare, but it would be incredibly rewarding and would be a great story to tell to inspire my research colleagues.”
