Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc, a leading RNAi therapeutics company, has received a milestone payment from its partner Roche related to initiation of pre-IND (investigational new drug application) studies for an RNAi therapeutics product candidate. Financial terms of the milestone were not disclosed.

"We are excited by the progress our partner Roche is making in developing their own portfolio of RNAi therapeutics based on Alnylam technology and intellectual property," said Barry Greene, President and Chief Operating Officer of Alnylam. "Since the start of our collaboration with Roche in 2007, we have been impressed with the high quality of their work and the rapid progress they have made in advancing this novel class of innovative medicines to patients. We look forward to continued success in their efforts."

In July 2007, Alnylam granted to Roche a non-exclusive license providing access to broad Alnylam intellectual property (IP) and know-how, including fundamental, chemistry and delivery IP, in the fields of oncology, respiratory disease, metabolic disease, and certain liver diseases. As part of the agreement, Roche also acquired Alnylam's Kulmbach-based research & development (R&D) organization which has now become Roche Kulmbach, a Roche Centre of Excellence for RNA therapeutics. In addition, Alnylam and Roche agreed to collaborate on RNAi therapeutics drug discovery for a defined number of disease targets, subject to certain Alnylam third party obligations. The drug discovery stage of the collaboration was initiated in November 2009.