Alnylam in $1 billion RNAi drug research deal with Japan's Takeda

US biotech firm Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc has entered into a deal with Japan's Takeda Pharmaceutical for jointly developing RNAi therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and metabolic diseases.

Alnylam will get over $100 million in upfront payments and $50 million in near-term technology payments from Takeda, and an expected $1 billion in research and development and product commercialisation.

The five-year agreement, which covers potential RNAi treatments in cancer and metabolic diseases, has the option to expand into other therapeutic areas, the companies said in a statement.

Osaka-based Takeda, Japan's largest drugmaker, will get access to Alnylam's RNAi therapeutics technology and intellectual property in oncology and metabolic diseases, Alnylam said. It will also get a right of ''first negotiation" to develop and commercialise Alnylam RNAi therapeutic development programmes for the Asian market (except the ALN-RSV01 programme).

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, which makes drugs from gene-blocking molecules, will have the option to co-develop and co-commercialise Takeda RNAi therapeutic programmes in the US market on a 50-50 basis.

The deal will benefit Takeda, which needs drugs to replace its best-selling diabetes drug Actos, after it patent expires in 2011. Actos, brought for 396.2 billion yen ($3.8 billion) last year, accounts for 29 per cent of Takeda's revenue. 

``Our product portfolio will be enhanced by the addition of RNAi therapeutics to our current small molecule and antibody research platform,'' Takeda president Yasuchika Hasegawa said in a statement.

''Alnylam and Takeda will work together for five years, and the relationship will continue on a product basis afterward,'' Alnylam president Barry Greene said. Takeda can choose to develop Alnylam's products in Asia, and the US company will have an option to help develop and market medicines Takeda finds using RNAi technology for the US, he added.

Alnylam is already working with Novartis AG, Roche Holding AG and Medtronic Inc for developing RNAi technology.

In April, Regulus Therapeutics, a joint venture between Alnylam and Isis, signed a deal with GlaxoSmithKlineGSK for four microRNA (miRNA)-targeted therapeutics for inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.

In 2004, Alnylam bought exclusive licence to Isis' double-stranded oligonucleotide therapeutics that uses RNAi technology.

Isis will receive $4.6 million from the new Alnylam-Takeda deal and also may receive portions of milestones.

RNAi therapeutics target the cause of diseases by silencing specific messenger RNAs (mRNAs) to prevent disease-causing proteins from being made. RNAi technology uses gene-blocking molecules to make drugs.

Founded by Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Phillip Sharp, Alnylam holds patents for uses of molecules called small interfering RNAs, or siRNAs, that can stop individual genes from making protein. The company is experimenting with siRNAs to treat Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, liver, brain and lung viruses, and other hard-to-treat conditions.