Alnylam Reports Progress in Strategic Alliance with Merck
Monday January 3, 8:01 am ET
- Company Receives $7 Million Technology Milestone Payment from Merck -
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY - News), a leading therapeutic RNA interference (RNAi) company, today announced that it has received a $7 million milestone payment from Merck in connection with the September 2003 strategic collaboration between the two companies to develop RNAi technology and therapeutics. The achievement that triggered this milestone payment was the development by Alnylam of in vivo RNAi technology to a pre-specified level of performance. The milestone payment included a $5 million equity investment at a price of $7.04 per share and $2 million in cash. The $7.04 equity investment price represents a 20-day trading average of Alnylam's common stock from the point of notification by Merck of the milestone achievement.
"The achievement of this milestone relating to systemic RNAi in vivo represents progress towards the development of RNAi therapeutics as a new class of drugs," commented John Maraganore, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Alnylam. "We feel it provides a fitting conclusion to a year that has also included the completion of our initial public offering, the initiation of our second collaboration with Merck in ocular disease, and our well-received recent publication in Nature demonstrating systemic RNAi activity in vivo."
Alnylam and Merck have entered into two separate but complementary strategic collaborations. The milestone achievement announced today was made in the first of these collaborations, initiated in September 2003. The goals of this collaboration are to advance RNAi technology, which uses a natural biological mechanism to inhibit the expression of disease-causing genes, and to apply this technology to develop RNAi therapeutics that selectively target human diseases. The second collaboration, initiated in June 2004, is focused on age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and other ocular diseases caused by abnormal growth or leakage of small blood vessels in the eye. This collaboration includes Alnylam's most advanced program, to develop a Direct RNAi(TM) Therapeutic targeting vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) for the treatment of the "wet" form of AMD.
"The ability to use RNAi in vivo is an important step forward for applications of RNAi in drug discovery and for the development of RNAi therapeutics," said Stephen Friend, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Molecular Profiling and Cancer Research at Merck.
As a result of the achievement of this $7 million milestone, Alnylam is updating its cash and investment guidance for the end of 2004 from greater than $35 million to greater than $45 million... |
