Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. an RNAi therapeutics company, has earned a $20 million technology transfer milestone payment from Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited as part of the strategic alliance the companies formed in May 2008. This payment is related to the transfer of Alnylam’s platform technology, including documents, materials, and know-how, to Takeda for the development of RNAi therapeutics. Alnylam has already received a $100 million upfront payment from Takeda upon deal execution. Upon earning this $20 million, there remains an additional $30 million in expected near-term technology transfer milestone payments. “We are excited about the progress we have already made in enabling Takeda with Alnylam RNAi drug discovery capabilities and intellectual property,” said Barry Greene, President and Chief Operating Officer at Alnylam. “We look forward to continuing our efforts in this strategic collaboration which is focused on advancing the development of RNAi therapeutics on a global basis, including Alnylam’s right to co-develop and co-commercialize certain Takeda RNAi therapeutic products in the U.S. market.” The Alnylam-Takeda alliance, which is valued at potentially over $1 billion, represents the first major RNAi therapeutics partnership between a Japanese pharmaceutical company and a U.S. biotechnology company. The agreement provides Takeda with broad, worldwide, non-exclusive access to and enablement with Alnylam’s RNAi therapeutics platform technology and intellectual property in the fields of oncology and metabolic disease, with the right to expand the number of therapeutic fields in the future. In addition, it includes a collaboration and cross-license of delivery technologies between the two companies, and a drug discovery collaboration on certain RNAi targets. Alnylam also has opt-in rights to co-develop and co-commercialize Takeda RNAi therapeutic programs in the U.S. market on a 50-50 basis.
