More colour on the Merck deal -
NEW YORK, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Merck & Co. Inc. on Tuesday said it has formed the first alliance between a large pharmaceutical company and a biotech to develop a promising new technology that is designed to block disease-causing genes and viruses.
The technology, RNA interference, works by preventing the body from making specific proteins that cause health problems. Most current drugs, by contrast, work by controlling the damage from harmful proteins that have already been made.
The deal requires Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Alnylam Holding Co. to find ways of blocking production of a number of proteins Merck (NYSE:MRK - News) believes may be linked to various ailments.
Merck did not provide financial details, but said it will buy a stake in privately held Alnylam, make upfront and annual cash payments, and make additional equity investments in the company as it comes up with compounds that have the potential of becoming drugs.
Merck did not detail which diseases are targeted under the deal, but Alnylam's aim is to develop products for viral, oncologic, metabolic, central nervous system, and autoimmune diseases.
A score of companies are attempting to perfect RNA interference, but Alnylam considers itself ahead of the pack because it owns important patents regulating its use.
"This is a very hot area and we are the only company in the field that has a partnership with a major pharmaceutical company," said Alnylam Chief Executive John Maraganore, who was a senior executive at Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NasdaqNM:MLNM - News) and Biogen Inc. (NasdaqNM:BGEN - News) before taking the helm of Alnylam last year.
Maraganore told Reuters his company will have the right to co-develop and co-market any drugs that emerge from the Merck partnership, keeping up to 50 percent of the profit.
Alnylam was founded by Phillip Sharp, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who won a 1993 Nobel Prize for a key discovery that underpins the company's technology.
Specifically, Sharp discovered how the so-called RISC protein found in all the body's cells cuts and thereby inactivates messenger RNA -- the molecules that help all genes make their designated proteins.
Alnylam's technology encourages RISC to snip and destroy the RNA linked to disease-causing proteins. The technology also uses synthetically made snippets of the RNA that bind to and inactivate the body's naturally occurring RNA.
Maraganore said Alnylam expects to forge similar deals with other large drugmakers and biotech companies in the coming year or two and that Alnylam is considering whether to become a publicly traded company.
Stephen Friend, a senior Merck research executive, said RNA interference has the potential of blocking production of many disease-causing proteins that can't be easily controlled by current medicines.
Researchers from both companies will work together to fix kinks in the emerging technology. That is one reason Merck has taken a significant stake in Alnylam, named after a giant star in the constellation Orion.
"It could take between one and five years for any drugs from our partnership to enter human trials," Friend said in an interview.
Friend said Merck picked Alnylam as a partner because it is aggressively forging ahead into drug development and has an "impressive brain trust" of scientists, board members and senior executives, including Sharp and Maraganore.
Merck for decades has been noted for its breakthrough medicines. But the company, based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, has recently suffered a decline in earnings growth and stature due to its inability to come up with many big new products.
Despite those hardships, Merck has vowed to regain its footing once its fabled research laboratories come up with new ground-breaking products -- including perhaps ones that work by blocking RNA.
Shares of Merck on Tuesday closed up 19 cents to $52.79 on the New York Stock Exchange (News - Websites).
(Additional reporting by Jed Seltzer) |
