Alnylam Awarded Federal Grant to Develop RNAi Therapeutics for Pandemic Flu
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Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has announced that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has awarded the company a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to advance the development of RNAi therapeutics for pandemic influenza.
The SBIR grant will provide Alnylam with approximately $590,000 in funding over a one-year period to support the company's research efforts on small interfering RNAs as anti-viral drugs with broad spectrum activity toward multiple influenza strains including the H5N1 virus.
"This grant recognizes the potential of RNAi therapeutics as a new class of anti-viral drugs for the treatment and prevention of highly virulent strains of flu and the promising pre-clinical data emerging from our flu program," said John Maraganore, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Alnylam.
"This grant also represents a continuation of our ongoing public sector-private sector partnership to advance RNAi therapeutics for pandemic flu."
"In addition to this grant from the NIAID, we have submitted a response to the Request for Proposal from the Department of Health and Human Services for advanced development of new anti-viral agents for influenza."
Alnylam's flu program, partnered with Novartis, is focused on the development of RNAi therapeutics targeting sequences that are common to all flu genomes, including those of avian origin such as the H5N1 strain.
Earlier this year, Alnylam scientists and academic collaborators demonstrated in vitro anti-viral activity toward a human clinical isolate of the H5N1 virus.
These potent effects toward H5N1 were achieved with multiple siRNAs that also showed anti-viral activity toward other flu strains.
The alliance's lead RNAi therapeutic candidate, ALN-FLU01, is comprised of two siRNAs that target distinct, conserved gene sequences of the flu genome.
Studies for the flu program are currently being conducted under ongoing research collaborations with the University of Georgia and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
The company has received initial government funding for its pandemic flu program from the Department of Defense's "Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency" (DARPA).
In addition, Alnylam has the support of Dowpharma (SM) contract manufacturing services, a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company, relating to the manufacture of an RNAi therapeutic for pandemic flu, creating the opportunity for domestic production.
