RNA & mRNA Proprietary Technologies
Technologies
We believe our two proprietary technologies, LUNAR® lipid-mediated delivery and STARR™ mRNA Technology, solve major hurdles in RNA medicine development.
LUNAR®
Our first platform is a proprietary lipid-mediated nucleic acid delivery system called LUNAR®. LUNAR® is a multi-component drug delivery system that is versatile and with our library of over 250 proprietary lipids, diverse. Our preclinical studies have shown that formulations can be customized for the indication and target cell type of interest. We have also demonstrated that our formulation process is scalable and reproducible.
LUNAR® Mechanism of Delivery Video
STARR™
The STARR™ Technology platform combines self-replicating RNA with LUNAR®, a leading nanoparticle delivery system, into a single solution to produce proteins inside the human body. The versatility of the STARR™ Technology enables it upon delivery into the cell to generate a protective immune response or drive therapeutic protein expression to potentially prevent against or treat a variety of diseases. The self-replicating RNA-based prophylactic vaccine triggers rapid and prolonged antigen expression within host cells resulting in protective immunity against infectious pathogens. This combination of the LUNAR® and STARR™ technology is expected to provide lower dose requirements due to superior immune response, sustained protein expression compared to non-self-replicating RNA-based vaccines and potentially enabling to produce vaccines more quickly and simply.
COVID-19 Vaccine Using STARR™ mRNA Technology
LUNAR®-mediated delivery of RNA into cells
LUNAR® particles associate with the cell membrane of a target cell of interest and quickly enter the cell via endocytosis.
Upon entering the cytosol, the LUNAR® formulations then become trapped in the endosomes.
With increased acidity as the endosome ages, a pH-mediated disruption enables release of the RNA payload following rapid biodegradation of the LUNAR®components.
Once release of the RNA into the cytosol occurs, the translational machinery can interact with the RNA and processing and/or trafficking can then take place to make functional protein.