Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics based on RNA interference, has amended its two existing RNAi collaboration agreements with Merck and consolidated the efforts into a single ongoing collaboration.

The revised terms provide Merck with a more active role in the development of RNAi therapeutic products, and Alnylam with an opportunity to receive accelerated research and development (R&D) funding at an earlier stage and the potential for significant milestones in addition to royalty payments or profit-sharing on any commercialised products resulting from the collaboration.

Under the revised terms, Merck may participate at an earlier stage in the research and development of these nine targets whereas under the previous agreement, Merck had the right to nominate these new targets for initial development by Alnylam. These new programmes are in addition to the existing programme directed to the NOGO pathway on which Alnylam and Merck are already collaborating.

Merck will assume primary responsibility for the remaining six programmes and Alnylam is eligible to receive milestone payments and royalties, on RNAi therapeutic products developed and commercialized by Merck in this programmes.

"We look forward to continuing our productive collaboration with Alnylam," said Stephen Friend, Executive Vice President, and Merck Research Laboratories. "We have seen significant progress in the RNAi field over the past three years and are truly excited by the opportunity to play a continued role in the development of this new class of drugs."

"We are delighted by Merck's continued and increasing enthusiasm for RNAi therapeutics, and their commitment to play an expanded role in our collaboration. We deeply value the commitment from Merck to advance RNAi therapeutic products as a new approach for the discovery of innovative medicines," said John Maraganore, President and CEO of Alnylam. "The amended agreement represents a new and stronger phase of our relationship, and significantly increases the ability of both companies to realize value from our collaboration. Indeed, the accelerated funding will bolster our efforts as we aim to bring RNAi therapeutics to patients."

However, in light of advances in the treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and the newly modified agreement, Alnylam and Merck will not jointly advance their July 2004 Ocular Disease alliance, and all rights to ALN-VEG01 will be retained by Alnylam. Alnylam is evaluating partnership opportunities for this programme, which has shown encouraging preclinical efficacy data and has successfully completed investigational new drug (IND) enabling toxicology studies.