New facility advances plant-based AAV production to support scalable gene therapy development and broader patient access
SAN DIEGO, California—(April 17, 2026)—Cirsium Biosciences (Cirsium), a San Diego-based company, announced the official ribbon cutting of its new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility.
Located at 9727 Pacific Heights Blvd, the 50,000-square-foot facility includes more than 35,000 square feet of dedicated manufacturing and research and development space. Built to support programs from early research through clinical trials, the facility reflects Cirsium’s vision to redefine how adeno-associated virus (“AAV”) manufacturing can advance to meet the industry’s growing challenges with its novel plant-based approach.
The facility’s design merges advanced science with high-tech agriculture, powered by vertical farming systems and end-to-end automation throughout the production process. These systems were engineered specifically for Cirsium’s proprietary technology, including newly developed capabilities designed to scale its plant-based approach.
Cirsium’s plant-based technology is designed to address longstanding limitations in traditional AAV production by introducing a more controlled, scalable, and commercially compelling approach. By leveraging novel plant science, the company aims to expand the possibilities for producing viral vectors at scale while maintaining consistency and cost efficiency, helping enable broader access to gene therapies over time.
“We’re not just opening a building; we’re opening the door to a potentially new era of AAV manufacturing,” said Dr. Dan Gibbs, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Cirsium. “This facility represents a bold step forward in our mission to make life-saving therapies more accessible to patients. By reimagining how AAV is produced, we’re laying the foundation for a prospective future where these therapies may be developed more reliably and on a global scale. This is an investment in infrastructure and in the future of medicine.”
“The opening of this facility represents the culmination of years of work to rethink how AAV vectors are produced,” said Jake Connors, Cirsium’s Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer. “We founded Cirsium to address a fundamental bottleneck in gene therapy production. This facility reflects our vision of a new approach to building scalable, reproducible AAV systems designed to enable the next generation of gene therapy research and innovation.”
Cirsium’s team, along with partners and board members, gathered to commemorate the milestone with an official ribbon-cutting ceremony.
About Cirsium Biosciences
Cirsium Biosciences is an innovative biotech company in San Diego, California, redefining AAV production with a novel plant-based technology. Operating at the intersection of biotechnology and high-tech agriculture, the company is addressing fundamental constraints in viral vector production, including scalability, consistency, and cost. Cirsium partners with developers and industry partners across the gene therapy ecosystem seeking to enable overcoming manufacturing challenges, support program scale-up, and enable broader future access to gene therapies. Discover more at www.cirsiumbio.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements related to the potential capabilities and benefits of Cirsium’s technology and facility, and the expected impact on AAV production and gene therapy development. These statements do not guarantee future performance or development but are based on current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Forward-looking statements in this press release may include, but are not limited to, statements regarding: our ability to develop, manufacture, and commercialize AAV vector-based gene therapies; the scalability and reliability of our AAV production platform and manufacturing processes; the design, timing, progress, and results of our preclinical studies and clinical trials; the expected therapeutic benefits, safety profile, and durability of expression of our gene therapy programs; the potential market size and commercial opportunity for our product candidates; our estimates of expenses, capital requirements, and future revenues; our ability to obtain, maintain, and enforce intellectual property protection for our proprietary technology; and the potential impact of legislation, regulations, and regulatory actions on our business.
These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that may cause our actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Given these uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Except as required by applicable law, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, changed circumstances, or any other reason after the date of this press release.
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