CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY), a leading RNAi therapeutics company, announced today that the United Kingdom Patent Office has granted a patent (UK 2417727 or “’727 patent”) for the Woppman et al. patent series, entitled “Double-stranded ribonucleic acid with increased effectiveness in an organism.” The newly granted patent includes 32 claims broadly covering compositions and methods, including pharmaceutical compositions, for small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), the molecules that mediate RNAi. The claims cover siRNA molecules of any length that contain “overhang” and “blunt end” design features, including siRNAs containing chemical modifications and certain novel motifs.
