CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY), a leading RNAi therapeutics company, announced today that the Japanese Patent Office has sent notification of an intent to grant a patent (JP Application Number 2002/546670) for the Tuschl II patent series, entitled “RNA Interference Mediating Small RNA Molecules.” The newly granted patent includes 39 claims broadly covering compositions, methods, uses, and systems for small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), the molecules that mediate RNAi. The grant of claims in the Japanese Tuschl II patent extends the issuance of the Tuschl II patent in the U.S. (U.S. Patent Nos. 7,056,704 and 7,078,196) and its grant in the European Union (EP 1407044), amongst other jurisdictions. As such, the Tuschl II patent series now provides Alnylam exclusivity for the claimed subject matter in the world’s top three pharmaceutical markets. The Tuschl II patent family is exclusively licensed to Alnylam for RNAi therapeutics on a worldwide basis through an agreement with Max Planck Innovation GmbH, the licensing agent for the Max Planck Society.
