“As part of the pioneering team that established RNAi therapeutics as a whole new class of medicines, I am thrilled to see the field advance with six approved medicines and a large and rapidly growing number of investigational programs in clinical development,” said Dr. Maraganore. “As the RNAi therapeutics field matures, many programs are targeting prevalent disease indications, such as cardiovascular and Alzheimer’s disease. While I am confident in the potential for RNAi therapeutics to transform the treatment paradigms for millions of impacted patients, today’s manufacturing practices rely on traditional chemical synthesis methods that may not accommodate a sharp increase in demand. Accordingly, I have long felt that an enzymatic route of synthesis is a critical innovation to reduce required infrastructure investments, mitigate high volumes of hazardous waste and ensure that drug developers can effectively address the coming demand of these medicines for patients.”

Dr. Butler added, “It’s incredible to see the progress that has been made in advancing siRNA therapeutics, and traditional chemical synthesis has enabled the development and initial commercialization of this modality. However, decades of process improvements are now achieving diminishing returns, and traditional chemical synthesis remains limited by scale per batch, expensive equipment, significant purification and waste disposal costs and a negative environmental impact. A fully enzymatic approach has the potential to improve efficiencies across each of these areas while reducing the significant capital expenditure required of chemical synthesis, all of which would be compelling to the many manufacturers who are ramping up investment in their oligonucleotide production capabilities.”

In addition to the KOL presentations, Codexis management, including Chief Executive Officer Stephen Dilly, MBBS, PhD; Chief Operating Officer Kevin Norrett, MBA; and Senior Vice President of Research Stefan Lutz, PhD, provided a technical overview of the ECO Synthesis™ platform and reviewed the program’s associated commercial opportunity and upcoming milestones.

“We were honored to have Dr. Maraganore and Dr. Butler share their insights on the RNAi manufacturing landscape during last week’s event. Their comments further reinforce the critical need for us to bring our ECO Synthesis™ platform to market, and we are pleased with our recent progress on both the technical and commercial fronts,” said Dr. Dilly. “We are fast approaching our key milestone of achieving gram-scale synthesis by the end of this year, which, if met, will provide additional validation of the potential for an enzymatic route of manufacturing, and also enable us to enter pre-commercial testing with select customers in 2024.”