Circio nominates RNA and gene therapy US industry veteran Dr. Dinah Sah to its Board of Directors
Summary by AI BETAClose X
- The Circio Nomination Committee is proposing Dr. Dinah Sah as a new Director of the Board, pending election in an EGM to be held on 25 August
- Dr. Sah is an RNA and gene therapy industry veteran with prior experience as CSO of Voyager Therapeutics and VP of Research of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals
- In parallel, the Nomination Committee is proposing that Dr. Robert Burns, current deputy Director, is elected as a Director of the Board
- Dr. Burns has served on the Board and R&D committee of Circio (and its predecessor companies) for over 15 years
Oslo, Norway, 4 August 2026 – Circio Holding ASA (OSE: CRNA), a biotechnology company developing novel circular RNA expression technology for gene and cell therapy, today announces that the Nomination Committee is proposing Dr. Dinah Sah and Dr. Robert Burns as new members of the Board of Directors of Circio. The election of Drs. Sah and Burns is pending approval in an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) to be held at 11:00 am (CEST) on 25 August 2026.
The board expansion follows a highly successful first half of 2026, where Circio has raised in total approximately NOK 620 million (USD 65 million) in new funding. The company is now intending to advance a lead circVec gene therapy candidate towards clinical entry. Therefore, Circio has been seeking to strengthen its Board of Directors with specific scientific expertise in the pre-clinical to clinical translation of AAV gene therapies.
After a thorough search and evaluation process, the Nomination Committee of Circio is proposing Dr. Dinah Sah for election to the Board of Directors. Dr. Sah brings more than 30 years of industry experience with a focus on gene therapy and RNA therapeutic development. She was on the founding team and CSO of Voyager Therapeutics and VP of Research at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, which pioneered development and approval of the first RNA medicines. Today, Dr. Sah serves on multiple scientific advisory committees and boards of biotechnology, venture capital and non-profit organizations, and is based in the Boston (MA, USA) area.
“Circio has now entered its next phase of development, aiming to bring a lead therapeutic candidate forward to clinical entry in 2029. To ensure Circio continues to make well-founded pre-clinical development decisions, we wish to further strengthen the Board with deep translational expertise in the RNA and gene therapy fields,” said Damian Marron, Chairman of Circio. “We are therefore very pleased to propose Dr. Sah as a new Board Director. She brings precisely the experience we need at this stage, having navigated several RNA and AAV gene therapy programs from early scientific promise into the clinic and through early clinical development. That Circio is able to attract a new Board Director of Dr. Sah´s caliber is a strong testament to the robustness and promise of our circVec technology platform, as well as the quality of our current R&D leadership. The re-nomination of Dr. Robert Burns ensures we retain his in-depth knowledge of our technology and his established contributions to supporting Circio’s management with the highest standards and to continuing strong Corporate Governance.”
“Circio´s innovative circular RNA expression technology shows real promise for solving some of the major challenges of current AAV gene therapies,” said Dr. Dinah Sah, new Director for election to the Board of Circio. “The circVec platform has significant potential to enable much lower doses of AAV gene therapy; retaining similar pharmacology in target tissues, while reducing off-target expression and cellular stress responses. These are very important translational advantages for next generation gene therapy. The versatile circVec technology may also have applications for other drug classes and represents a highly interesting platform that I very much look forward to being part of advancing.”
In parallel, the Nomination Committee is proposing that Dr. Robert Burns is re-elected as a Director of the Board. Dr. Burns has served on the Circio Holding ASA (and its predecessor companies) Board of Directors and R&D committee since 2010, and has been a deputy Director of the Board since 2024. Dr. Burns therefore has a unique background perspective and depth in Circio´s science and development programs.
The election of Drs. Sah and Burns is being put for a shareholder vote in an EGM to be held at 11:00 am (CEST) on 25 August 2026. Following election, the Circio Board of Directors will be composed of five members:
- Damian Marron (Chairman)
- Thomas Falck
- Diane Mellett
- Robert Burns
- Dinah Sah
Biography – Dr. Dinah Sah
Dr. Dinah Sah is an executive in the biotechnology industry with more than 30 years of R&D experience building and leading high performance start-up companies and teams from inception to rapidly advance novel, transformative technologies for drug discovery and development, in multiple therapeutic areas and with new classes of drugs. Her primary expertise is AAV gene therapy and RNAi therapeutics for neurological disorders, especially neurodegenerative diseases. She currently serves on multiple scientific advisory boards and boards of biotechnology, venture capital and non-profit organizations. Dr. Sah was a founding member and Chief Scientific Officer of Voyager Therapeutics, focused on the discovery and development of AAV gene therapies for the treatment of severe neurodegenerative diseases. Prior to Voyager, she was Vice President of Research at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals which pioneered siRNA therapeutics as a new class of drugs and also served at Biogen and Signal Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Sah’s work led to the discovery of novel drug targets and drug candidates that advanced into clinical development. Her leadership of multiple programs from early research through Phase 1 clinical trials included notably the transthyretin (TTR) siRNA therapeutic program (patisiran) which provided the first, landmark demonstration of human proof-of-mechanism for this novel class of drugs, in TTR amyloidosis – peripheral neuropathy patients. This work ultimately led to FDA approval of the first systemic RNAi therapy, ONPATTRO® (patisiran), which has transformed the lives of these patients and paved the way for multiple subsequent RNAi therapeutics.
Dr. Sah is an inventor on more than 40 patents. Her publications across diverse research areas include articles in journals such as Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Neuroscience, Molecular Therapeutics, Neuron, PNAS and the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Sah received her B.S. in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her Ph.D. in Neurobiology from Harvard University.
Biography – Dr. Robert Burns
Dr. Burns has been active in the life science/biotechnology sphere since the mid-1970s initially in the diagnostics segment of the industry and from 1989 in therapeutics R&D. He has served as CEO of Oslo based Affitech (NASDAQ), New Jersey based Celldex (NASDAQ), and Basel based 4-Antibody, each of these companies developing antibody based therapeutic products and each company needing to be reshaped for success. Two antibody-based checkpoint inhibitor products generated during his time at 4-Antibody are now in Phase 3 trials for colorectal cancer. Prior to those roles, he served in academia in a business development and licensing role at Ludwig Cancer Research (LCR) in New York during the period in which LCR and others were leading the field of clinical research on checkpoint inhibition in cancer therapy. Previously, he operated in business & commercial development roles in OGS plc (UK), British Biotechnology plc (UK), and Applied bioTechnology (US). He has also served on several biotechnology company boards: Piramed (UK), as Chairman of Haemostatix (UK), and Affibody (Sweden) where he currently serves as chairman. He also currently advises Oxford based iuvantium (immunomodulatory inorganic layered double hydroxides).
He received his PhD in chemistry from Birmingham University (UK) in 1971 and subsequently served as a scientific and technical advisor in the then UK Ministry of Health before joining Corning Medical (a division of Corning Inc) serving in a variety of business development, marketing, and manufacturing roles in both the UK and USA.
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