Alnylam And Tekmira Restructure Relationship And Settle All Litigation

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY) announced today that they and Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation have restructured their relationship with a new licensing agreement and have resolved all litigation between the parties in a settlement agreement. The new license agreement consolidates and clarifies certain intellectual property (IP) elements related to lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology for RNAi therapeutics. Further, Alnylam has elected to independently manufacture its LNP-based RNAi therapeutic products and to buy-down certain future potential milestone payments and a significant portion of future potential royalties for its ALN-VSP, ALN-PCS, and ALN-TTR02 programs. The settlement of all ongoing litigation between the two companies allows Alnylam to continue to focus its efforts on advancing innovative medicines to patients.

“With this restructuring of our Tekmira relationship, we are gaining independence in our LNP manufacturing and decreasing the milestone and royalty burdens on several of our LNP-based products. Further, the companies have created clarity around the overall patent estate for LNP-based products, while ensuring Alnylam’s full access to use this technology for our products in the future. Of course, we are also pleased to put this legal matter behind us and continue our focus on advancing RNAi therapeutics through clinical trials with the goal of bringing them to the market where we can make an impact in the lives of patients and their caregivers,” said Barry Greene, President and Chief Operating Officer of Alnylam. “Alnylam plans to continue to advance RNAi therapeutic products as part of its ‘Alnylam 5x15’ product strategy with LNP delivery technologies - as employed with ALN-TTR02, ALN-PCS, and ALN-VSP, in addition to the use of the company's proprietary conjugate-based delivery technology - as employed with ALN-TTRsc, ALN-AT3, and other undisclosed programs.”

Under a new license agreement, Alnylam and Tekmira have agreed to consolidate certain IP elements related to LNP technology for the systemic delivery of RNAi therapeutic products. Specifically, certain patents and patent applications, including the MC3 lipid family, will be assigned by Alnylam to Tekmira. Alnylam retains full rights to use this IP for advancing RNAi therapeutic products to the market, including the rights to sublicense IP on a product-by-product basis. Alnylam has also agreed to grant five additional non-exclusive therapeutic licenses to Tekmira.

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