Circio Holding ASA (OSE:CRNA), a biotechnology company developing novel circular RNA expression technology for gene and cell therapy, said on Thursday that it has entered into a research collaboration with protein engineering company Avenue Biosciences to evaluate whether their technologies could enhance the long-term expression and secretion of therapeutic proteins for gene therapy applications.

The partnership will combine Circio's circVec circular RNA expression platform, which has demonstrated enhanced and durable gene expression in multiple tissues, with Avenue Biosciences' high-throughput, machine learning-powered protein engineering platform that identifies signal peptide variants to improve protein secretion.

The companies will assess whether the combined technologies can act synergistically to improve the delivery of secreted proteins, including antibodies, through AAV gene therapy for genetic and chronic diseases.

Under the collaboration, Avenue Biosciences will conduct the initial screening of signal peptides, while Circio will perform subsequent in vitro and in vivo testing.

Circio said the collaboration aligns with its strategy of evaluating the circVec platform across multiple tissues and genetic payloads to identify additional therapeutic applications.