Alnylam, Roche advance RNAi collaboration

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. said it has advanced to the RNAi therapeutic collaboration stage of its 2007 with Roche, the international drug giant.

Just over two years ago, Cambridge-based Alnylam signed a $331 million deal that allowed Roche to use Alnylam's RNA interference research to help develop drugs to treat cancer, respiratory disease, metabolic disease, and certain liver diseases.

In discussing the potential of RNA interference, or RNAi, a Globe story about the Roche announcement noted that the "power of RNAi to turn genes on and off, thus muting their function inside a cell, could lead to medicines that mount a highly focused attack on a disease, shutting off a dangerous gene, or attacking a virus at a vulnerable point."

Now, two years later, the alliance is entering a new phase.

In a press release today, Alnylam said, "In this phase of the collaboration, the partners will jointly collaborate on the discovery and development of specific RNAi therapeutic products and each will contribute key delivery technologies in the new disease target-focused effort."

The release included a statement from Louis Renzetti, vice president of RNA therapeutics research at Roche.

"We continue to view RNAi as having true potential as a whole new class of differentiated drugs to benefit patients," Renzetti said. (Globe Staff)