Cirena has licensed a validated long RNA purification technology from Agilent Technologies, marking a strategic move to break a major bottleneck in synthetic RNA production for genome editing and functional genomics.

 

The agreement targets a long-standing technical hurdle in the field: maintaining chemical purity as RNA constructs extend beyond 100 nucleotides. This limitation has constrained scalability and reproducibility in longer RNA design, particularly for advanced research applications.

 

As RNA length increases, achieving high chemical purity becomes increasingly difficult. Conventional purification workflows often struggle to deliver consistent results for long constructs, undermining reliability in downstream applications. 

 

Agilent’s validated purification technology is designed to address this gap, enabling higher purity outputs for long RNA constructs that are difficult to achieve using standard industry methods.

 

The upgrade has direct implications for high-value research tools. RNA in the 100–300 nucleotide range is increasingly important for applications such as pegRNA and gRNA-based genome editing, as well as functional genomics assays, where even small synthesis-derived impurities can reduce editing efficiency and compromise reproducibility.

 

“Agilent’s purification IP reflects years of foundational work aimed at overcoming the limitations of conventional long RNA purification,” said Thomas Redder, an Associate VP of Global Strategic Business Development and IP Transactions at Agilent Technologies. 

 

“Licensing this technology to Cirena enables broader research access to high purity long RNA constructs that have historically been challenging to produce with consistency and scale.”

 

Cirena says the integration of Agilent’s technology into its RNA synthesis platform is intended to directly address those constraints.

 

“By integrating Agilent’s purification technology with our RNA synthesis platform, Cirena will address purity and scalability constraints that have limited routine production of longer RNA constructs,” said Doug Dellinger, CEO of Cirena. 

 

“For biotechnology and pharmaceutical teams, this enables more reliable access to high purity 100–300 nt RNA for genome editing, functional genomics, and other research workflows where experimental outcomes are sensitive to synthesis-derived impurities.”

 

The company’s RNA synthesis platform is designed to maintain sequence integrity across demanding CRISPR, long non-coding RNA, and functional genomics applications. 

 

Cirena says the addition of Agilent’s purification approach will streamline production workflows, reduce turnaround times, and improve consistency in gRNA, pegRNA, and related RNA constructs.

 

With global delivery to academic, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical research teams working across genome editing, oncology research, vaccine development, and gene regulation, the company is positioning the upgraded workflow as a step toward more scalable and reproducible RNA manufacturing.

 

The licensed purification technology is expected to support routine production of high purity long RNA constructs across length ranges that have traditionally been difficult to purify, potentially improving consistency in downstream research applications.