Sirna Therapeutics Inc and Archemix Corp have entered into an exclusive four-year process development, analytical development and manufacturing alliance for all of Archemix's cGMP aptamers through phase 2a clinical development.

As part of this agreement, Sirna also granted Archemix a worldwide, perpetual, non-exclusive license to its intellectual property for the manufacture and commercialization of aptamers. In addition to payments for the manufacture of aptamers, Sirna will receive certain downstream consideration for the license granted to Archemix.

This agreement follows an October 2003 agreement between the companies that provided for Sirna to manufacture cGMP grade of Archemix's anti-thrombin aptamer, ARC183, for preclinical, Phase 1 and Phase 2a studies. Based on the success of this earlier agreement, both companies agreed to enter into this expanded agreement to cover additional aptamers in Archemix's development pipeline, release from Sina said.

Nassim Usman, senior vice president and COO at Sirna Therapeutics said, "Sirna's mission is to develop nucleic acid therapeutics based on RNA interference (RNAi). One of Sirna's strategic advantages is its expertise and intellectual property in the chemistry, process development and manufacturing of nucleic acids in general, and RNA in particular. Through our partnership and licensing agreement with Archemix, the leading aptamer therapeutics company, Sirna will generate revenues as Archemix develops and commercializes its aptamer products. Further, through such alliances, we continue to strengthen our manufacturing capabilities that are essential for the successful development of RNAi-based therapeutics."

"This agreement also provides us with full access to Sirna's extensive expertise in RNA chemistry, analytical development and process development. Based on the success of our ARC183 manufacturing agreement with Sirna and Sirna's leadership position in the field of RNA chemistry and technology, we felt confident that Sirna could best fill these needs, and could do so in a cost-effective manner while maintaining the highest standards of quality," commented Marty Stanton, executive vice president at Archemix.

Sirna Therapeutics is using its proprietary technology and expertise in nucleic acids to develop a new class of nucleic acid-based therapeutics involving RNA interference. RNAi is a mechanism used by cells to regulate the expression of genes and replication of viruses. The RNA interference mechanism uses short interfering RNA (siRNA) to induce the destruction of target RNA using naturally occurring cellular protein machinery.