A developer of an emerging class of drugs designed to shut off
genes that trigger disease has reached its second potential $1 billion deal with
a large pharmaceutical company in less than a year.The latest partnership
for the habitual dealmakers looks like a good deal for one partner.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq:ALNY) on Tuesday announced
a drug-licensing partnership with Japan's Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., an
agreement similar to a non-exclusive deal it reached last summer with
Switzerland-based Roche.
There is growing interest in development of so-called RNA
interference technology from traditional pharmaceutical companies eager to
supplement their slow-growing pipelines of drugs.
ALNY gets $100 million in up-front payments, and in exchange, Takeda gets the
"right of first negotiation" to sell Alnylam's RNAi drugs in Asia -- excluding
its most advanced treatment programst o treat a virus that causes cold-like
symptoms. Alnylam will get up to $171 million in development and commercial
milestone payments, as well as royalties for each drug developed.
According to the fools at Motley (www.fool.com), "If that were the end of the
partnership, I'd say it was a pretty balanced deal, but Alnylam is also getting
$50 million in exchange for giving Takeda a non-exclusive license to develop
RNAi drugs to treat cancer and metabolic diseases. As part of the deal,
"Alnylam has the option to co-develop and co-market four of Takeda's RNAi
drugs in the U.S.
Alnylam will have to pay half the development costs, but it
doesn't have to make a decision about the drugs until after any phase 2 results
are complete. Since the U.S. is such a large drug market, the deal could boost
Alnylam's revenues down the road if any of Takeda's prospects pan out.
And maybe that's the rub. RNAi is still a new technology that hasn't been
proven successful in a phase 3 trial yet, so it's hard to know which company
will eventually benefit more from this partnership. In the meantime, Alnylam has
another $150 million to pad its coffers, and Takeda has a call option on an
unproven but promising set of drugs."
RNAi technology is fascinating and so promising, especially in a world that
seems to be seeing a rise in mutant disease viruses and many new forms of
bacterial as well as viral infections. It can be used to treat many forms of
cancer and degenerative diseases as well.
