Xconomy: Isis, Alnylam to Collaborate on Single-Stranded RNA Drugs; Deal Could Add Up to $31 Million to Isis Coffers
Summary
Isis concentrates on developing drugs that make use of “antisense” molecules that lock onto messenger RNA and destroy it before it can be translated into proteins.The two companies have a long relationship—in 2007, for example, they pooled their intellectual property in an area called microRNAs to form Carlsbad, CA-based Regulus Therapeutics.Most RNAi research to date has focused on using double-stranded molecules to turn off specific genes, and Alnylam has amassed a strong patent portfolio in this area.In today’s announcement of the deal, Stanley Crooke, chairman and CEO of Isis, called Alnylam “the perfect partner” to help broaden applications of ssRNAi technology.“We’ve had a mutually beneficial collaboration based on their innovation and patents in the field of double-stranded RNAi drugs, and we’ve been impressed with their continued expansion of this innovation to single-strand RNAi approaches.” The agreement would seem to be a sweet deal for Isis.