Touchlight extends funding round to boost DNA vector manufacture

The company said it will use the funds to expand production capacity for its enzymatically produced synthetic (“doggybone DNA™”) DNA vector, dbDNA™ that can be used as starting material for mRNA vaccines used against COVID-19. The financing round was led by Bridford Investments Limited and Novator Partners.

Touchlight is expanding the footprint of its Hampton-based facilities and hiring qualified staff to enable production of up to 1 kilogram of GMP DNA per month once operational in Q2/2022. The expansion includes assembling dedicated commercial and marketing operations in the UK and North America.

Touchlight's target market are the growing bunch of genetic medicines, such as DNA-based COVID-19- and cancer vaccines. alongside synthetic DNA-based antibody research in collaboration with Vanderbilt University and DARPA.

doggybone DNA™ is a synthetic DNA vector produced enzymatically.  Compared to traditional plasmid DNA (pDNA), which is currently a key component of mRNA vaccines and gene therapies. GMP dbDNA can be produced more rapidly than pDNA (weeks versus months) and is manufactured using benchtop equipment with a significantly smaller physical and carbon footprint, making it simple and rapid to scale up as well as highly portable and amenable to technology transfer. dbDNA vectors contain no antibiotic resistance genes – a topic of increasing regulatory scrutiny.