Alnylam Announces Acquisition of Nucleonics Patent Assets

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has announced that it has acquired the intellectual property (IP) assets of Nucleonics, Inc., a privately held biotechnology company. The Nucleonics IP estate includes over 100 active patent filings, including 16 that have granted worldwide and 6 that have been granted in the U.S., Europe, or Japan.

The Nucleonics IP estate includes certain early patents and patent applications, notably the "Li & Kirby," "Pachuk I," and "Giordano" patent families, that cover broad structural features of RNAi therapeutics and extend the breadth of Alnylam's "fundamental" IP, which is comprised of the Crooke, Fire & Mello, Kreutzer-Limmer, Glover, Tuschl I, Tuschl II, Hannon, and Kay patent families.

With this acquisition, Alnylam has extended the scope of its overall IP estate for RNAi therapeutics, which now includes over 1,800 active cases. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed; however, this transaction does not change Alnylam's financial guidance of ending the year with greater than $500 million in cash.

"Nucleonics was one of the first companies in the RNAi therapeutics space focused primarily on gene therapy applications of RNAi. As they built their company, they acquired a number of early and broad patent families that are relevant for development and commercialization of all RNAi therapeutics, including synthetic small interfering RNAs, or 'siRNAs,' the molecules that mediate RNAi, which remain Alnylam's sole focus," said Barry Greene, President and Chief Operating Officer of Alnylam.

"When added to our existing IP estate, which is already dominant in the field, the Nucleonics IP estate provides further strengthening of a portfolio that is buttressed across all possible dimensions. Importantly, Alnylam's IP estate is defined by a very large number of distinct patent elements that in aggregate define the overall strength of our exclusivity in the RNAi therapeutics field."