ARW ON RNA

Here, in part one of this two-part article, we identify how tRNA stands apart from other RNA modalities and gene therapies, as well as how this molecule’s unique “skill set” is guiding the company’s future clinical strategy.
OUR EXPERT NETWORK
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Engineering The Next Generation Of Lipid Nanoparticles For Advanced Therapeutics
Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) face significant hurdles in clinical use due to challenges with their stability, manufacturing, and understanding how their complex characteristics impact therapeutic efficacy and safety.
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A Guide To Designing mRNA Medicines
A poorly designed mRNA sequence can create ongoing difficulties during downstream clinical development and manufacture. Let's take a closer look at strategies and design software that you can employ.
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First AMT Program OK'd Under New FDA Designation — Here's What To Know
The FDA's new Advanced Manufacturing Technology program has its first recipient, a development expected to reveal the specific ways the program benefits drug innovators.
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Designing Our Way Toward Circular RNA Medicines With AI
The closed-loop structure of circular RNA can offer sustained, durable expression. We caught up with Sail Biomedicines' Kerry Benenato and Rajesh Ramaswamy to chat about ways to leverage AI for design/engineering.
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The Potential Impact Of U.S. Tariffs On The Biotech Sector: Manufacturing, Funding, And Clinical Trials
Syner-G Biopharma Group's Raymond Forslund, Ph.D., MBA explores how U.S. tariffs might affect biotech manufacturing, funding, and clinical research.
WEBINARS
MEET ARW
I’ve spent the past 10 years building relationships across the biologics and advanced therapies industry. In addition to hosting conversations and writing thought leadership articles, my goal as the editorial and community director for Advancing RNA is to find creative ways for the RNA (and broader ATMP) space to discuss, debate, and ultimately define a mature RNA therapeutics industry.
Start the conversation by following me on LinkedIn!
ARW ON BUSINESS OF BIOTECH
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On this week's Business of Biotech, Thomas Levenson, MIT professor and author of So Very Small: How Humans Discovered The Microcosmos, Defeated Germs — And May Still Lose The War Against Infectious Disease talks about what he learned in the writing of So Very Small, how cultural and political forces shape scientific progress, and what it means for drug developers, public health officials, and patients everywhere.
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On this week's Business of Biotech, Michelle Werner, CEO at Alltrna, talks transfer RNA (tRNA) therapy with host Ben Comer and guest co-host Anna Rose Welch, editorial and community director at Advancing RNA. Werner explains why a single engineered tRNA therapy has the potential to treat "hundreds, if not thousands," of rare genetic diseases, and how her own child's rare disease diagnosis shaped her career and approach to drug development. Werner also discusses Alltrna's use of AI and machine learning for drug optimization, the company's planned use of basket trials, and more.
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In close partnership with Johns Hopkins and TriLink BioTechnologies, Jeff Coller, Ph.D. and Michelle Kim, Ph.D. have built a sandbox for RNA developers and aspirational RNA business builders to play in. On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, we team up once again with Advancing RNA's Anna Rose Welch to learn about the venture, dubbed the Johns Hopkins University RNA Innovation Center.
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Dr. Tal Zaks joins the Business of Biotech for the second part of "Story Time With Tal," discussing his transition from Moderna's CMO during the COVID-19 pandemic to co-founding Exsilio Therapeutics, an mRNA startup. The episode explores Exsilio's foundation, scientific focus, team recruitment, and its $82 million Series A funding led by Novartis Venture Fund and Delos Capital, with support from prominent investors like OrbiMed, CRISPR Therapeutics, and J.P. Morgan Life Sciences Private Capital.
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Tal Zaks, M.D. was Chief Medical Officer at Moderna before, during, and immediately following the company's headline role during the COVID pandemic. If that doesn't pique your interest about the stories he can tell, this episode of the Business of Biotech surely will. Tune in to the first installment of this two-part episode for insight from the early days of mRNA that you probably haven't heard before.
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This week, it’s another “Business of Biotech-meets-Business-of-RNA” takeover with Circio CEO Erik Digman Wiklund, Ph.D. and guest co-host Anna Rose Welch of Advancing RNA. While Circio’s legacy is in cancer immunology (it still boasts a cancer vaccine candidate targeting KRAS driver mutations), the company made a bold pivot, of sorts, when it committed headlong to the circular RNA future. Now, it’s in the throes of fine-tuning a platform for the development of novel circRNA medicines for rare disease, vaccines, and cancer.
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Guest co-host Anna Rose Welch of Advancing RNA fame joins us on this week’s Business of Biotech podcast for a conversation with the leaders of RNA upstart Radar Therapeutics. The company’s co-founders, Eerik Kaseniit, Ph.D. (CSO & President) and Sophia Lugo (CEO), are making waves in the mRNA therapeutics space on the heels of the invention of a precision-expressed mRNA technology that laid bare the path to Radar’s inception.
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As if Orna Therapeutics' CEO, Thomas Barnes, isn't enough to draw you in to the Business of Biotech, we teamed up with Advancing RNA Editorial & Community Director Anna Rose Welch to co-host this week's episode. Together, Anna Rose and I press Dr. Barnes on his transition from academia to biotech, the therapeutic proposition of circular, or "O", RNA and why it holds great potential to best linear RNA constructs, the novel, platform- and partnership-based approaches Orna is taking to address B-cell lymphomas and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, viral vector and lipid nanoparticle complexity, and a whole lot more.
VIRTUAL EVENTS
- Understanding The Impact Of New Regulatory Guidance
- A Closer Look At mRNA-LNP Analytical & Manufacturing Technology Innovation
- The "Tides" Have Changed: Outsourcing Oligos And Peptides
- Accelerating mRNA-LNP Development: A Deep Dive Into Analytical & Manufacturing Technology Innovation
- A Deep(er) Dive Into The mRNA/RNA-LNP Outsourcing Paradigm
- Navigating The Outsourcing Paradigm For RNA Modalities
NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE
- 06.18.25 -- Decoding Recent MHRA & EMA mRNA Regulatory Guidance
- 06.11.25 -- "Raiders Of The Lost Codon:" Alltrna On Evolving "Ancient" tRNA Into Therapeutics
- 06.05.25 -- Master The Final Critical Step In Drug Manufacturing
- 06.04.25 -- Improving LNP Formulation For RNA Therapeutic Applications
- 06.02.25 -- Changes To The Global Clinical Trial Landscape
- 05.28.25 -- EMA Issues Draft Guideline On Quality Aspects Of mRNA Vaccines