Circio

What is your business idea, and what problem are you aiming to solve?
– We are developing circular RNA (circRNA) that may eventually replace mRNA. mRNA has been very successful in the COVID vaccines from BioNTech and Moderna, but mRNA still suffers from being unstable and degrading quickly. circRNA has no free end, making it resistant to cellular degradation mechanisms, significantly improving stability. Many believe that circRNA may take over from mRNA in the future, and as a result, there is currently a lot of research and investment in circRNA.

Where are you now?
– circRNA is generally still in an early stage of development, but Circio is the most advanced company in Europe in circRNA technology. We have developed a circRNA concept that has shown a 15x extended shelf life compared to mRNA, and this fall, we are testing our first circRNA, among other things, at Karolinska Institutet.

What are your plans for the future?
– We plan to build a flexible circRNA platform with a wide range of applications and develop circRNA product candidates for gene therapy, vaccines, and cancer treatment.

Why are you in Flemingsberg?
– We are in Flemingsberg due to the availability of competent workforce in this sector and its infrastructure. Additionally, we were able to find a lab right next to the Karolinska Institutet, which also has excellent infrastructure.

– We established ourselves in Flemingsberg thanks to a collaboration with Prof. Michael Uhlin at KI Flemingsberg in early 2022, and since then, we have built a team at KI that researches immunotherapy and circRNA. Our research group at KI has now grown so large, and the level of activity is so high that we needed to acquire our own labs and offices to continue to grow. There was plenty of space on campus near KI, so it was an easy choice to establish ourselves here and maintain close contact with the KI environment and the expertise in Prof. Uhlin’s group.

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