Alnylam and INEX Accelerate Collaboration on Systemic Delivery of RNAi Therapeutics

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Inex Pharmaceuticals Corporation have announced that based on progress made to date, the companies are accelerating their collaboration focused on the systemic delivery of RNAi therapeutics.

Alnylam and Inex formed this collaboration in March 2006 to explore use of Inex's liposomal delivery technology for the systemic delivery of Alnylam's RNAi therapeutic products.

"Very rapidly, our scientific teams have made tremendous progress in achieving systemic delivery of Alnylam siRNAs formulated in Inex liposomes," said John Maraganore, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Alnylam.

"Given the results to date, we are confident that we will be able to achieve potent and specific gene silencing with systemically delivered siRNAs, and we are thrilled to move forward into the next, expanded phase of our collaboration with Inex, whom we view as having leading intellectual property and capabilities in the area of lipid-based drug delivery systems."

"We are enthusiastic to be working with Alnylam on solutions for the systemic delivery of RNAi therapeutics," said Timothy M. Ruane, President and Chief Executive Officer of Inex.

"It is very gratifying to see such promising results after only a few months of working with Alnylam and we are pleased to enter the next phase of our collaboration ahead of schedule."

In March 2006, Alnylam and Inex formed an exclusive collaboration to evaluate the systemic delivery of RNAi therapeutic products using liposomes.

The results to date encourage both parties to believe that Alnylam's RNAi therapeutics can be efficiently encapsulated in Inex's liposomes and effectively delivered to disease sites in animal models to carry out the desired effect of silencing the gene target.

As part of the collaboration, Alnylam has the option to take worldwide exclusive licenses to use Inex's technology for RNAi therapeutics directed to specific gene targets.

Any exclusive license agreement would include upfront license fees, future milestone payments and royalties on product sales.

Due to the rapid progress made so far, Inex and Alnylam have decided to move into the next phase of the collaboration, which includes looking at additional gene targets.

In conjunction with this decision, Alnylam will make certain payments to Inex totaling approximately $1.9 million, $1.0 million of which relates to an option to take a broad exclusive license to Inex's technology.

The remaining payments are for license option fees for certain named targets and support for the expanded research program.