BIO 2026 | Eric Wiklund | Circio | Partner.Bio

[00:00:06]Hello everybody. We are here on day two of Bio 2026 here in San Diego and a very special guest. His name is Eric and he's with Serkio, which actually comes from Norway, correct?

[00:00:15]>> Yeah.

[00:00:16]>> to know the name of the background of the name in a moment. I want to get into his background as well, which actually is really fascinating and some of your hobbies as well. I don't know if everybody knows about all your little hobbies and all the other things that you got into, but he is a serial entrepreneur and he has done a lot of things across the industry. Actually, I want to say that you've even had many, many roles.

[00:00:31]You've been a CFO, a CBO, a CEO of Serkio, correct?

[00:00:36]>> Yeah, that's true.

[00:00:36]>> That's true and then you started off work in the McKinsey side, so you were a consultant even in that way as well.

[00:00:41]>> Yeah, and prior to that I was an academic scientist.

[00:00:43]>> Yes.

[00:00:45]How do we start in those kind of places and end up where we are, right? But tell us a little bit more about your background and I'd love to hear about your your your side hobby, this other organization that builds dinner kits using organizations that I guess you source the the food from local farms, is that correct?

[00:01:01]>> Yeah, correct.

[00:01:01]>> Okay, so tell us a little bit about your background first, Eric.

[00:01:03]>> So I'm an academic scientist by background, RNA biologist. My claim to fame in academia is that I was a co-discoverer of circular RNA.

[00:01:10]>> Mhm.

[00:01:10]>> And that's why we now work on circular RNA in in Serkio.

[00:01:14]>> Makes sense.

[00:01:14]>> Serkio, that's where it comes from, right? Circular circular RNA.

[00:01:18]>> Yes, yes.

[00:01:18]>> So I I left academia in 2010 and I went to work at McKinsey for a few years.

[00:01:23]Projects for big corporations, public sector work.

[00:01:26]>> Yeah.

[00:01:26]>> And I realized I don't like big bureaucracies. I want things to go fast.

[00:01:30]I'm much more entrepreneurial person. So come coming out of that, I quickly went to biotech and I founded several companies and that's how we now ended up with Serkio.

[00:01:39]>> And Serkio, I mean with the Serkio organization alone, you've had a number of roles, of course. So you've worked up your into before of course becoming CEO.

[00:01:48]So you've seen the organization from a lot of different perspectives.

[00:01:50]>> Yeah, I'm one of the few employees that have been around Serkio or the predecessor company for the about 10 years now.

[00:01:56]>> Yeah.

[00:01:56]>> And worked in both the finance department, the science department, and BD and I took over about 4 years ago.

[00:02:02]>> Okay. All right, so let's talk about Circio. I want to say the theme with Circio is doing more with less. Is that accurate?

[00:02:08]>> Yes, absolutely.

[00:02:08]>> Yes, you like that?

[00:02:09]>> [laughter] >> Uh don't use that as a tagline. I get you know, I get credit for that. Uh no, but uh seriously, talk to us more about what you're doing with circular RNA and how that allows for more with less.

[00:02:18]>> So, circular RNA is a really neat form of RNA >> Yep.

[00:02:21]>> because it's much more durable >> Yep.

[00:02:23]>> than normal linear RNA. So, linear RNAs tends to get degraded really quickly inside of a cell. An mRNA that's produced inside of a cell will have a half-life of around 10 hours.

[00:02:32]>> Mhm.

[00:02:33]>> That's because the cell wants to be able to tune the gene regulation up or down.

[00:02:36]It doesn't want to be uh committed to high level of gene expression for too long.

[00:02:40]>> Yes, yes.

[00:02:40]>> But from a therapeutic perspective, this is a big disadvantage because your your mRNA therapeutic is going to be just chopped up really fast.

[00:02:47]>> Mhm.

[00:02:48]>> So, when we discovered circular RNA uh now 10, 15 years ago with with my colleague and now CTO Thomas Hansen, we quickly realized that these circular RNA molecules, although in a cell they will typically typically perform regulatory or structural functions, if you could make these circular RNAs coding like an mRNA, it would be potentially a big advantage.

[00:03:07]>> Yeah.

[00:03:08]>> So, that discovery led to a lot of interest in circ RNA as a therapeutic modality.

[00:03:14]Uh it took a few years and then 2020, 2021, we saw some companies launch with big financing rounds based on circ RNA platforms like Orna Therapeutics >> Yeah.

[00:03:24]>> which was recently acquired by Eli Lilly. Laron Butol is another one.

[00:03:28]>> These are based on your findings originally. Yes.

[00:03:30]>> They all cite our original work. That's a bit of fun. We actually coined the term. Tell us a bit about the circ RNA.

[00:03:34]That's we we came up with it.

[00:03:36]>> Yeah.

[00:03:36]>> And uh it's really cool that this is now becoming something uh kind of big.

[00:03:41]>> Yeah, bigger than yourself. Yes, of course.

[00:03:43]>> So, what all these other companies are doing is making the circ RNA synthetically.

[00:03:47]Usually formulating it in an LNP either for vaccine or in vivo car approaches.

[00:03:52]>> Yeah.

[00:03:52]>> So, it's quite similar to BioNTech and Moderna in that regard. They're They're doing the same thing just using the circular format.

[00:03:59]What we saw is that no one took the angle of making vector-based therapeutics that can express a gene via circRNA. For example, AAV gene therapy.

[00:04:09]>> Yeah.

[00:04:09]>> If you could make the AAV produce the genetic cargo via circRNA, that could be a much more durable way and also you could increase the expression because the RNA lasts for longer.

[00:04:19]>> Absolutely.

[00:04:20]>> And no one else has really done this successfully yet.

[00:04:22]>> Yeah.

[00:04:22]>> So, we So, we carved out the niche in in the circRNA space where we're not really competing with other circRNA companies.

[00:04:29]We're just deploying the advantage of circRNA for for something else.

[00:04:33]>> Yeah.

[00:04:33]>> And in the context of AAV, we've shown that we can increase gene expression by up to 50-fold.

[00:04:37]>> Wow.

[00:04:38]>> And that could be big because sir, AAV, the biggest challenge today is high production cost and high tox.

[00:04:45]>> Absolutely.

[00:04:46]>> to give such high doses that it's really toxic to patients. We've seen some cases of of patient deaths, which is tragic.

[00:04:52]Now, if you switch to our circlex gene expression system, data suggests you can drop the dose down by 50-fold.

[00:04:58]And this would potentially be >> These are single doses, aren't they?

[00:05:01]>> Yeah.

[00:05:01]>> Yeah.

[00:05:01]>> have enormous advantage from a toxicity perspective and cost perspective and that's why our analogy is perfect, doing more with less.

[00:05:07]>> Yes, yes. We It's a lot more with a lot less.

[00:05:10]And it's a one-time treatment for these gene therapies.

[00:05:12]>> In the case of gene therapy with AAV, >> Yeah.

[00:05:14]>> that's the case.

[00:05:15]>> Yes.

[00:05:16]>> Now, we're also using it for for other applications where you could have repeat dosable therapeutics.

[00:05:20]>> Of course, of course. Yeah, so I I mean, I'm I'm more curious about too because there's such a trend right now with a lot of cell and gene therapy work that's going on. So, is there anything on the cell therapy side as well that's going to be using circular RNA?

[00:05:31]>> Yeah, we're also active in the in vivo car area. There, we're not delivering with AAV. We're using synthetic DNA format vectors.

[00:05:38]>> Okay.

[00:05:39]>> And when these are engineered with our circlex circRNA expression, we can achieve around 6 months of expression on a single dose.

[00:05:46]>> Okay.

[00:05:47]>> Now, this slots right in between the alternatives available right now. So, either you go with a RNA strategy >> Yeah.

[00:05:52]>> that could be mRNA like the the Ably Capstan approach or CircRNA like BMS with with Orbital or Eli Lilly and Arena Therapeutics. But, they still that's transient. That's only a few days.

[00:06:06]>> Yeah.

[00:06:06]>> Or you use lentiviral approaches, which is an integrating carries a lot of safety concerns, but then you get a permanent expression.

[00:06:12]>> Yeah.

[00:06:14]>> The way we look at it these days is that the former the RNA is suitable for autoimmune disease. Just a quick burst of expression is enough. And the permanent one you need for oncology.

[00:06:23]>> Okay.

[00:06:24]>> Short expression is going to be enough.

[00:06:25]Now, with CircRNA we can fit in between.

[00:06:27]>> Yeah, okay.

[00:06:27]>> So, we can do 3 to 6 months of expression on one dose. So, it means you have something much more long-lasting than the RNA, but it's still non-integrating and safer than going with a integrating lentiviral system.

[00:06:41]>> It sounds like overall the efficacy is just much much better across the board though. Yeah.

[00:06:44]>> We still need to prove this.

[00:06:46]>> Yes, of course. Of course.

[00:06:46]>> But, we were quite excited about having a format that could potentially outcompete the integrating lentiviral systems.

[00:06:55]>> Yeah, of course. So, I want to talk about just the concept of having a cancer vaccine. So, it's a myeloma that you guys are I think approaching.

[00:07:02]Also, we have pancreatic cancers, lung cancers, things of that nature. So, what's the vision there? I mean, what is the hope that we can actually vaccine vaccinate folks against certain kinds of cancers in the future?

[00:07:13]>> You know what? We we've actually parked our cancer vaccine programs. We're no longer working on them.

[00:07:18]>> We will cut that.

[00:07:20]>> [laughter] >> We will cut that.

[00:07:22]I will cut that. But, you did say a moment ago um you did say a moment ago that you were looking at certain kinds of oncolytic studies and certain kind of therapies that space.

[00:07:30]>> We're So, all that immunotherapy IO story is on with oncolytic virus and cancer vaccine. Now, we're looking at deploying DNA format circular RNA expression in in In Vivo car.

[00:07:43]>> Yeah. For liquid cancers.

[00:07:44]>> Okay.

[00:07:44]>> B-cell driven lymphomas.

[00:07:46]>> Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:07:47]>> That that is our oncology focus.

[00:07:49]>> focus there? Okay. All right, cool. I had a couple of things I wanted to ask you about BIO because you've come out this far to see this show halfway across the world. Have you been to BIO before?

[00:07:58]>> Yeah, we always send someone to BIO. I don't know, this might be my fifth or sixth BIO.

[00:08:03]>> Fifth or sixth BIO, okay. All right, mine too.

[00:08:05]Um I was curious like what kind of buzzwords are you hearing this year or you're looking into you come to all the way out to this show that you want to make sure that while you're here you hear more about.

[00:08:14]>> The circular RNA space is really hot at the moment.

[00:08:17]>> Yeah.

[00:08:17]>> So, everyone's interested in this, whereas it was viewed as unusual in the past. Now, it's become uh proven in the way that big pharma are investing heavily in it. So, it's one of one of the I think topics that is high on everyone's mind.

[00:08:29]>> Yeah.

[00:08:30]>> The same goes for In Vivo car.

[00:08:32]>> Yeah.

[00:08:32]>> It's extremely popular at the moment.

[00:08:34]There's a massive deals.

[00:08:36]Clinical data is expected very soon. So, I'm not sure this is the conference where we're going to see that clinical data, but in the near future we'll know how that field is moving.

[00:08:45]>> Maybe by ESGCT, do you think?

[00:08:47]>> For sure. So, we're we're really gearing up for ESGCT.

[00:08:50]>> Yeah, okay.

[00:08:51]>> of gene therapy, it's all about dose reduction these days.

[00:08:54]>> Yeah.

[00:08:54]>> Though everyone is trying to develop novel platforms and technologies to get the dose down and then CircVec our technology could be one piece of that.

[00:09:02]>> I love that.

[00:09:03]>> And then the last topic which is I don't know, to some degree entertaining to follow is the the situation at the FDA at the moment, what's happening and the regulatory pathways are are previously agreed trials going to be approvable or not and just in the last few days there was news from Regenex and Unicure and it seems like now we're pivoting back to where we were, but it's a it's a bit of a chaotic situation regulatory wise.

[00:09:27]>> So, outside of that are there any other friction points that you're seeing in the space right now for to let us continue to show progress in these in these areas?

[00:09:34]>> It's been hard to fundraise.

[00:09:36]>> Yeah.

[00:09:36]>> Particularly in gene therapy.

[00:09:38]>> Yeah.

[00:09:38]>> But that started to change Q3 last year.

[00:09:41]Uh and now it's uh the field is gaining momentum again.

[00:09:45]>> Yeah.

[00:09:45]>> And we also were able to build on this success and we've raised $65 million this year.

[00:09:50]>> Congratulations on that.

[00:09:51]>> programs and now we're funded all the way into the clinic.

[00:09:53]>> That's great.

[00:09:54]>> And uh that that's been the biggest pain point. It's like the biggest risk I would say of the company in the past.

[00:10:00]>> Yeah.

[00:10:00]>> And the biggest workload for me has just been continuous fundraising.

[00:10:04]>> And now I know you're a scientist and what do you have to work on all day?

[00:10:07]It's money.

[00:10:07]>> I can go back and work some on >> Okay. Now you get to focus on this.

[00:10:09]>> Now we have the money in the bank.

[00:10:10]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:11]>> We can plan for the next 4 to 5 years.

[00:10:12]>> Okay. Well, congratulations on that.

[00:10:13]That's excellent. That's excellent. So, what are you excited about next? What is the next thing that you would hope, other than Serkino RNA getting adopted across the entire industry, which we hope to see, right? Uh what are what else are you excited about?

[00:10:24]>> We have, you know, we made these hats saying make AAV great again.

[00:10:28]>> Yeah.

[00:10:28]>> For our own little MAGA strategy. And we we want to make >> That's really great.

[00:10:32]>> [laughter] >> I didn't even know that. That's excellent. That's excellent.

[00:10:35]>> So, we want to make AAV great again.

[00:10:37]>> Yeah. Okay.

[00:10:37]>> We The next step here is to show that you can make AAV safe, >> Yeah.

[00:10:41]>> cheap, reachable for more diseases.

[00:10:43]The all these caveats with AAVs and they've been sort of struggling for a while.

[00:10:47]>> Yeah.

[00:10:47]>> But this is still a format that is going to play a role.

[00:10:50]>> Okay.

[00:10:50]>> And it's what works the best at the moment. And we want to just be part of of making the next wave of next gen AAVs.

[00:10:57]>> I love that.

[00:10:57]>> And then longer term, in vivo cell therapies tremendously exciting.

[00:11:01]But that's going to be trickier to resolve. I think it will take a little bit longer and uh and looking forward to follow that field and be a bit part of that also.

[00:11:09]>> That's great. We know a number of organizations that work in AAV and they've been very successful, like 100% successful on IND work and um I'm very excited to see where how that can now get adopted more universally and see where else gene therapy can go. Is that what you're I hope that it will get adopted more. Okay, cool. Um All right, let's see. Last uh one or two other questions I just want to ask you. So, AI.

[00:11:31]There's this rise in digitization, of course, that's been going on for years.

[00:11:34]And I'm just curious from your point of view, do you feel like AI is going to have a positive negative impact on the work you're doing? Is it helping in any way? Is it distracting in any way? How are you guys looking at that as a strategy?

[00:11:45]>> You AI has a role and you need to use it for the things AI is good at.

[00:11:50]>> Yeah.

[00:11:51]>> At the moment, we are using AI scientifically. We use it for designing and predicting what candidates might work.

[00:12:00]>> Yeah.

[00:12:01]>> So in the past we might have we might have needed to test 100 different things. And now we can narrow it down to 10 or 20. So it helps us narrow down the amount of work and or have a higher hit rate.

[00:12:13]>> Okay.

[00:12:13]>> But unfortunately, the we're our understanding of biological systems, biochemical pathways, physiology is still so limited. We're just scratching the surface of what happens in the human organism that you you're nowhere near the ability to replicate experiments. So you still need to do wet lab experiments, in vivo work in order to figure out test whether stuff actually works.

[00:12:34]This this we simply don't we're not there. I think it's going to take a long time until you can do all your experimental work in a computer.

[00:12:44]>> Okay.

[00:12:45]>> But it certainly helps from that perspective. Also, repetitive tasks in terms of data analysis has become much more efficient.

[00:12:52]>> Yeah. So we are we are working with AI in that way.

[00:12:55]>> we get data in >> Yeah.

[00:12:56]>> where we had to do a lot of manual cleaning of data, processing that can now be automated much more. So it makes us more efficient.

[00:13:04]>> Okay.

[00:13:05]>> still relying on on doing hands-on experimental work and will be and clinical trials in the end will be for the foreseeable future. And then the last part is competitive intelligence is monitoring the field.

[00:13:16]>> Oh, sure.

[00:13:16]>> This is so much easier now with with good AI tools.

[00:13:20]>> But with any tool, we have to still keep humans in the mix to just validate the information for sure. I get all that.

[00:13:25]>> Always QC what you get out. I use We usually say that the AI gets us 80% there and then the 20% you need to do yourself. Don't forget that.

[00:13:33]>> Yeah, you Yeah, I can't forget that. Um and then before we go, I just again wanted to talk about your other initiative for a moment. This other dinner kit initiative that you have going on. I just think it's a fantastic idea to try to make sure that there's um opportunities for local farmers and local sourcing for food. So just for a second, can you talk about that?

[00:13:51]>> Yeah, I lived abroad for many years in Australia. I lived in the US for a while and I moved back to Norway in 2011 when we had our first child.

[00:13:59]And grocery stores are just terrible in Norway. Selection is not good.

[00:14:03]>> Yeah.

[00:14:03]>> And there is all this fantastic produce, but you can't There are no shops where you can buy it.

[00:14:07]>> Wow.

[00:14:08]>> So it just started as almost a philanthropic project where we we want to be able to access this food at home.

[00:14:14]So with a few friends, I started this dinner kit concept back when It's a bit like HelloFresh. You have >> Okay, yeah, of course. Yeah, I know these.

[00:14:20]>> Blue Apron.

[00:14:20]>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:14:21]>> But focusing on sourcing the produce from local farmers.

[00:14:25]>> Okay.

[00:14:25]>> And uh this has now been quite successful. There's uh about 30 employees and turnover is about 200 million Norwegian kroner, like $20 so it's a profitable business.

[00:14:35]>> not a nothing thing.

[00:14:37]That's a very big That's a very big company.

[00:14:39]>> we are the biggest customers now of most small farms we use.

[00:14:44]>> Oh, wow.

[00:14:44]>> So that also puts the >> Put some money back in the area. Yeah.

[00:14:49]>> We have good negotiation power in that regard whereas you can't compete with the big grocery chains on that side. So we we just deliver something different to everyone else.

[00:14:57]>> That is fantastic. I love that you're doing that. That's a little bit of McKinsey in you, I think. Yeah.

[00:15:02]It's still there a little bit here and there. Um okay, well, again, this has been a pleasure, Eric. Thank you so much for joining us here on Partner Bio. Um Circio is doing great. I'm very excited for you guys and of course you're going to hear more and more about circular RNA throughout the his throughout the industry and I hope to hear even more, especially in the AAV side as you mentioned. So that's really, really fantastic and you're doing work. So congratulations. I hope you have a great show. Thank you for coming in.

[00:15:23]>> Yes, it was great to chat with you, too.

[00:15:25]Thanks, everybody. We'll see you soon.