mRNA as novel active ingredient - Plasmid Factory providing the template for tomorrow's vaccines

PlasmidFactory GmbH was founded in 2000 in Bielefeld/Germany with 4 employees. In the meantime, under the founder and managing director Dr. Martin Schleef, the company has become a well-known contract manufacturer (CDMO) for plasmid and minicircle DNA. Today, PlasmidFactory has ~50 highly qualified employees, and has established a GMP manufacturing facility.

- Dr. Martin Schleef

The usage of messenger RNA (mRNA) as novel active ingredient has attracted public attention in recent years, and it has become clear that it has profoundly changed biotechnology. How did this come about?

RNA, especially mRNA, has shown its capability to catalyze the development of advanced therapeutics, including engineered proteins, next-generation vaccines, and novel pharmaceuticals, whereby its versatility is unmatched, with its potential applications spanning infectious diseases, oncology, and rare genetic disorders. Besides the platform's inherent adaptability, its scalability facilitates rapid production and deployment, particularly critical during pandemic responses or personalized pharmaceuticals.

These properties streamline the preclinical and clinical development phases, accelerate the path from laboratory to bedside and make mRNA an extremely valuable drug with great potential that has not yet been exhausted.

Usage of RNA as new active ingredient represents a paradigm shift in modern medicine. Especially the deployment of mRNA vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 has underscored their transformative potential in vaccinology. What are the main components and what are the advantages?