Alnylam licenses RNAi products, services from Kreutzer-Limmer patents to Dharmacon

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, Jan. 5 - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced Thursday that it has granted Dharmacon, Inc. a nonexclusive license to provide RNAi research products and services under the Kreutzer-Limmer patent family.

This patent family, owned solely by Alnylam, covers small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and their use to mediate RNAi in mammalian cells, according to a company news release.

"We are delighted that Dharmacon, one of the world's leading suppliers of siRNA reagents, has taken a license to the Kreutzer-Limmer patent family, which is seen as a critical component of fundamental intellectual property in the field of RNAi," Vincent Miles, Alnylam senior vice president of business development, said in the release.

The license enables Dharmacon, a business unit of the Fischer Biosciences Group, to provide innovative siRNA technologies to life science and drug discovery researchers around the globe, said William S. Marshall, vice president of technology and business development for Fisher Biosciences, in the release.

Alnylam's intellectual property estate includes certain "fundamental" patents and patent applications that claim broad structural and functional properties of synthetic RNAi products.

This fundamental intellectual property includes the Kreutzer-Limmer patent family that was obtained through the July 2003 acquisition of Ribopharma AG, now Alnylam Europe AG, officials said.

The Kreutzer-Limmer family includes: EP Patent No. 1144623, covering siRNAs up to 25 nucleotides in length having a sequence complementary to a target gene, and EP Patent No. 1214945, covering compositions, methods and uses of siRNAs with a length between 15 and 49 nucleotides.

Patents corresponding to these European patents have been issued or are pending in many other countries, officials said.

Dharmacon is one of 10 research products suppliers, and 17 companies overall, to take a license for therapeutic or research product applications under fundamental intellectual property owned or controlled by Alnylam in the field of RNAi, officials said.

Alnylam is a Cambridge, Mass., biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics based on a breakthrough in biology known as RNA interference, or RNAi.

Dharmacon, based in Lafayette, Colo., is a business unit within the Fisher Biosciences group and a provider of RNA oligonucleotides, small interfering RNA and related RNA-interference products and technologies.

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