Boston-headquartered Ginkgo has significantly expanded its work in cell and gene therapy over the last few years, including a program to improve adeno-associated virus (AAV) manufacturing in partnership with Biogen, and a program to develop AAV capsids with altered tropism and immunogenicity in partnership with Selecta Biosciences.
The field of nucleic acid therapeutics is a promising novel therapeutic modality, and Ginkgo has worked on programs across the space, including with Moderna and Aldevron, and is actively engaged in improving circular RNA efficacy and manufacturing yields.
With the acquisition of Circularis, a biotechnology company with a proprietary circular RNA (circRNA) and promoter screening platform, Ginkgo gains the ability to enable new solutions across bioproduction, RNA therapeutics, cell therapy and gene therapy partnerships.
When circularized, RNA is much longer-lived in cells, improving its robustness as a potential therapeutic modality. The Circularis platform also allows ultra-high-throughput screening of promoters and other enhancers.
RNA potential
Founded in Oakland, California in 2014, Circularis eyes up the power of circular RNA to control ‘any gene, in any species, in any cell type’. Its tech has applications across gene therapies, bio manufacturing and synthetic biology.
Of particular interest to Ginkgo is the Circularis platform in applications in cell and gene therapies: which can provide the capability to rapidly identify novel promoters with appropriate strength and tissue-specificity designed into customer specific delivery modalities.