Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY), a leading RNAi
therapeutics company, announced today that the company and Max Planck
have asked the Court to dismiss the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) from any claims for monetary damages in the ongoing
litigation related to the Tuschl I patent series. As part of the request
for dismissal, MIT has stipulated it will be bound by any declaratory,
injunctive, or equitable relief to the extent that the Court may
ultimately award such relief against the Whitehead Institute for
Biomedical Research or the University of Massachusetts. Whitehead and
UMass remain as defendants in the suit, which was originally filed in
June 2009.
In the field of RNAi therapeutics, Alnylam is the exclusive licensee of
the Tuschl I patents and patent applications from Max Planck, MIT, and
the Whitehead Institute and of the Tuschl II patents and patent
applications from Max Planck.
As this matter is in active litigation, Alnylam and Max Planck will not
be able to provide specific details in response to inquiries on this
topic.
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. Small
interfering RNAs (siRNAs), the molecules that mediate RNAi and comprise
Alnylam’s RNAi therapeutic platform, target the cause of diseases by
potently silencing specific 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,
transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis (ATTR), hypercholesterolemia, and
Huntington’s disease. 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, Kyowa Hakko Kirin, and Cubist.
Alnylam and Isis are joint owners of Regulus Therapeutics Inc., a
company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of
microRNA-based therapeutics. Founded in 2002, Alnylam maintains
headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more information, please
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, including whether we are successful
in obtaining the remedies we seek in this litigation, whether our
patents issue with valid and enforceable claims which are commercially
useful, and whether we are able to successfully commercialize the
technology underlying such claims as well as those risks more fully
discussed in the "Risk Factors” section of its most recent quarterly
report on Form 10-K 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.
