Alnylam Pharmaceuticals And Roche Collaboration Selected As Best Partnership Alliance By Scrip
December 11, 2008
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY), a leading RNAi therapeutics company, announced today that its collaboration with Roche received the award for ‘Best Partnership Alliance' at the fourth annual 2008 Scrip Awards, held in London last night. The Scrip Awards, awarded by Scrip World Pharmaceutical News, recognize excellence and achievement in the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
In July 2007, Roche and Alnylam entered into a major alliance in which Roche obtained a non-exclusive license to Alnylam's technology platform for developing RNAi (RNA interference) therapeutics. The alliance initially covers four therapeutic areas: oncology, respiratory diseases, metabolic diseases and certain liver diseases. Alnylam and Roche are also collaborating on RNAi drug discovery for one or more disease targets in these therapeutic areas. In addition, Roche acquired Alnylam's European research site located in Kulmbach, Germany, which became Roche's Center of Excellence for RNAi therapeutics discovery.
RNAi is a potential foundation for a whole new class of human therapeutic products. RNAi is a natural mechanism that the body uses to inhibit expression of certain genes. Harnessing the activity of RNAi creates a direct opportunity to develop specific and potent drugs against diseases that are difficult to treat.
"We are honored to receive this prestigious Scrip Award as recognition of the strength of this alliance, and of RNAi as a transformative technology that has the potential to create a whole new class of drugs," said Jason Rhodes, Vice President, Business Development at Alnylam. "This award is a testament to the hard work and dedication - and the commitment to innovation - of the extraordinary teams at Alnylam and Roche who are working together to develop novel RNAi therapeutics to address global unmet medical need."
"We believe RNAi therapeutics is one of the most promising approaches for novel drugs, and together with Alnylam, our mission is to find novel solutions for patients who suffer from difficult to treat diseases," said Dan Zabrowski, Global Head of Roche Pharma Partnering. "The execution and progress of this landmark alliance represents our complete and joint commitment to this important objective."
The criteria on which the entries were judged for the award included the strategic potential of the alliance, the degree to which it was mutually beneficial to the parties involved, whether it addressed an unmet medical need, and the novelty of the business model.
About RNA Interference (RNAi)
RNAi (RNA interference) is a revolution in biology, representing a breakthrough in understanding how genes are turned on and off in cells, and a completely new approach to drug discovery and development. Its discovery has been heralded as "a major scientific breakthrough that happens once every decade or so," and represents one of the most promising and rapidly advancing frontiers in biology and drug discovery today which was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. RNAi is a natural process of gene silencing that occurs in organisms ranging from plants to mammals. By harnessing the natural biological process of RNAi occurring in our cells, the creation of a major new class of medicines, known as RNAi therapeutics, is on the horizon. RNAi therapeutics target the cause of diseases by potently silencing specific messenger RNAs (mRNAs), thereby preventing disease-causing proteins from being made. RNAi therapeutics have the potential to treat disease and help patients in a fundamentally new way.
About Alnylam Pharmaceuticals
Alnylam is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics based on RNA interference, or RNAi. The company is applying its therapeutic expertise in RNAi to address significant medical needs, many of which cannot effectively be addressed with small molecules or antibodies, the current major classes of drugs. Alnylam is leading the translation of RNAi as a new class of innovative medicines with peer-reviewed research efforts published in the world's top scientific journals including Nature, Nature Medicine, and Cell. The company is leveraging these capabilities to build a broad pipeline of RNAi therapeutics; its most advanced program is in Phase II human clinical trials for the treatment of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection. In addition, the company is developing RNAi therapeutics for the treatment of a wide range of disease areas, including liver cancers, hypercholesterolemia, Huntington's disease, and TTR amyloidosis. The company's leadership position in fundamental patents, technology, and know-how relating to RNAi has enabled it to form major alliances with leading companies including Medtronic, Novartis, Biogen Idec, Roche, Takeda, and Kyowa Hakko. To reflect its outlook for key scientific, clinical, and business initiatives, Alnylam established "RNAi 2010" in January 2008 which includes the company's plan to significantly expand the scope of delivery solutions for RNAi therapeutics, have four or more programs in clinical development, and to form four or more new major business collaborations, all by the end of 2010. Alnylam is a joint owner of Regulus Therapeutics LLC, a joint venture focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of microRNA therapeutics. Founded in 2002, Alnylam maintains headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more information, visit www.alnylam.com.
Alnylam Forward-Looking Statement
Various statements in this release concerning Alnylam's future expectations, plans and prospects, constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, as well as those risks more fully discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of its most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent Alnylam's views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing its views as of any subsequent date. Alnylam does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.