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Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Alnylam Grants Takeda RNAi Therapeutics License for Cancer and Metabolic Disease and Anoints Asian Partner of Choice

As if executing from a script, Alnylam today announced its first major Asian licensing deal giving Japanese pharmaceutical company Takeda access to the US biotech's RNAi Therapeutics IP for cancer and metabolic disease. The deal also provides Takeda with the preferred option of co-developing Alnylam product candidates for the Asian market. In return, Alnylam gets a sizeable $100M in immediate upfront, and another $50M in "near-term technology transfer payments". Adding the typical development and commercialisation milestones, field area expansion payments, and royalties built into these deals, the eventual value may well exceed one billion US dollar.

The agreement is also another validation as to how important SNALP RNAi has become for the current valuation of RNAi Therapeutics, as both metabolic disease and cancer are the two major near-term opportunities for SNALP RNAi. Remember, Roche’s therapeutic areas also included metabolic disease and cancer, as well as certain liver diseases and respiratory disease.

That this deal was announced one day before the close of the Tekmira-Protiva reunion should also be no coincidence and the exact timing may relate to the interests of various Tekmira and Protiva shareholders. Furthermore, my expectation is that the announced $50M in near-term technology transfer payments refers to the final closing of Tekmira-Protiva as well as finalization of an R&D collaboration agreement for SNALP similar to the ones that Tekmira currently has with Alnylam and probably soon with Roche as well. It also reminds us that there are at least another 3 Big Pharma and biotechs that are currently evaluating SNALP RNAi with Protiva-Tekmira. So plenty of more news to come and auction dynamics to set in.

Takeda’s move once more emphasizes the thirst of Big Pharma for innovation. Takeda itself has just propped up its sales numbers and cancer franchise with a headline-grabbing $8.8billion purchase of Millennium Pharmaceuticals and adding to that another $150M for planning more long-term may not be bad for balance. And on the same business trip at that. This is because Millennium is also Alnylam’s Cambridge, MA, neighbor and former employer of Alnylam’s CEO John Maraganore. In fact, it is rather curious that John Maraganore was chosen by the Boston Globe to voice his views on the Millennium deal, to which he responded that “the deal could potentially free Millennium from worries about making every quarter's profit figures, allowing it to invest more money in drug development.” Well, with the $150M in added cash, and ~$400 already stashed in the bank, he has just gotten one step closer to that dream.

Takeda has just had a high-profile failure for an cholesterol-lowering drug candidate, and may now be keen more than ever on exercising its right to partner Alnylam’s PCSK9 program for Asia. ALN-RSV01 interestingly is the only program that Takeda does not have first right of refusal, and may indicate yet another deal in the Alnylam pipeline.

Takeda is also strong in the diabetes area, and it will be interesting as to whether Takeda will pursue such programs with RNAi soon and for which liver-expressed genes may be targeted. This may particularly benefit Alnylam since, unlike in the Roche deal, it now has also the opportunity to opt into Takeda’s RNAi Therapeutics programs in a 50:50 relationship.

Based on statements such as "We believe this alliance will accelerate our initiatives to establish the foundation for RNAi drug discovery" in the presss release by president of Takeda, Yasuchika Hasegawa, it also appears that Takeda has been quite a bit active in RNAi Therapeutics already. Moreover, the deal provides for a cross-licensing of delivery technologies, and it will be exciting to learn what these are.

Novartis, Roche, and now the Takeda deal by yet another major foreign company may illustrate two points. One is that the US currency has fallen so low that foreign companies cannot resist the opportunity to secure their rights to US innovation, in this case to RNAi Therapeutics at bargain exchange rates. The other is that Alnylam may want to keep US rights to itself for the time being.

Finally, the deal is yet another validation that if you have money and are serious about developing RNAi Therapeutics, Alnylam is the company to partner with for access to fundamental IP and, thus far, enablement, too.

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By Dirk Haussecker. All rights reserved.

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