Touchlight – Weekly Recap

Touchlight featured prominently this week as it promoted its cell-free DNA platform as an alternative to plasmid DNA for genetic medicine manufacturing. The company emphasized its dbDNA technology’s rapid production, scalable deployment, and lack of bacterial impurities for gene therapies, mRNA vaccines, and cell-based treatments.

Touchlight also highlighted its mbDNA architecture suite, including sscDNA, hsscDNA, and dscDNA, positioning these circular DNA tools as advancements for gene-editing applications. Claimed benefits such as improved cell viability, higher efficiency, larger payload capacity, and delivery flexibility are aimed at attracting developers in gene editing and synthetic biology.

The company underscored performance gains from its enzymatic dbDNA platform in lentiviral vector manufacturing, citing up to 40% higher infectious titres for a clinical-stage ET3 transgene in collaboration with Expression Manufacturing. Touchlight noted consistent performance across 2.5th- and 3rd-generation lentiviral systems, presenting dbDNA as a potential solution to production bottlenecks.

Business development efforts were a key theme as Touchlight prepared for the ASGCT 2026 conference in Boston, where it will be present at booth No. 1334. The company plans to engage gene and cell therapy developers on its cell-free DNA offerings, including mbDNA and Custom Circles, and to position these as tools to accelerate development timelines.

Across multiple communications, Touchlight framed ASGCT as a platform to deepen relationships with biopharma partners and expand its role in the gene and cell therapy supply chain. By promoting meeting requests and directing attendees to technical resources, the company signaled a coordinated push to convert scientific visibility into collaborations and supply agreements.

Governance developments also featured this week, with Touchlight announcing the appointment of industry veteran Will Downie to its Board of Directors. His leadership experience at Argenta, Vectura, Catalent, and GE Healthcare is expected to support the company’s commercial scaling and partnership strategy in pharma services.

Taken together, the week’s updates indicate Touchlight is simultaneously advancing its DNA technology platforms, demonstrating potential manufacturing advantages, and reinforcing its commercial and governance infrastructure. These moves may enhance its positioning as an enabling supplier in the expanding cell and gene therapy ecosystem.