CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY), a leading RNAi therapeutics company, announced today that the Chinese Patent Office has issued an intent to grant for a patent (Application No. 01820900.9) in the Tuschl II patent series. This patent includes 44 claims broadly covering compositions, methods, uses, and systems for small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), the molecules that mediate RNAi. The grant of claims in the Chinese 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), Europe (EP 1407044), Japan (JP 4 095 895), and Australia (AU2002235744). 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.
