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news.Alnylam Pharmaceuticals has secured key intellectual property (IP) for RNAi applications in vaccine development by completing an exclusive option agreement with Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and an exclusive license agreement with The University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.
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The new applications of RNAi technology define opportunities for the advancement of novel vaccines in many human diseases, including infectious disease and cancer.
Alnylam is collaborating with the laboratory of Benjamin tenOever at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine on the development of microRNA-based attenuated influenza viruses which offer the potential for use as improved live attenuated influenza vaccines.
In addition, Alnylam has exclusively licensed IP and technology from The University of Queensland around the use of RNAi in the development of cancer vaccines. The agreement was facilitated by the University’s main commercialisation company UniQuest.
Stuart Pollard, vice president, scientific and business strategy at Alnylam, said: “RNAi technology has become a game changer across most of biomedical research, and its applications in the discovery and development of vaccine products are certainly no exception.
“While our primary focus remains on the development of RNAi therapeutics, Alnylam’s strategy is to also explore the full breadth of RNAi applications in medicine, such as our efforts on microRNA therapeutics with Regulus and our recent efforts with Alnylam Biotherapeutics. These new license agreements extend this strategy with emerging RNAi-based opportunities for vaccines.”