CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 18, 2006--Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY - News), a leading RNAi therapeutics company, announced today that a new key fundamental patent from its exclusively held "Tuschl II" patent series was issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The newly issued U.S. patent (U.S. Patent No. 7,078,196 or " '196 patent") broadly covers methods of making small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), the molecules that mediate RNAi, and includes 79 claims covering chemical modifications needed to introduce "drug-like" properties in RNAi therapeutics. The issued patent is exclusively licensed to Alnylam for RNAi therapeutics on a worldwide basis through an agreement with Garching Innovation GmbH, the licensing agent for the Max Planck Society. The '196 patent further strengthens Alnylam's intellectual property (IP) leadership that includes another Tuschl II patent (U.S. Patent No. 7,056,704 or " '704 patent"), covering methods of making siRNAs to target any messenger RNA in a mammalian cell, and the recent successful outcome of the European Opposition Proceedings for the Kreutzer-Limmer I patent (EP 1144623 or " '623 patent"), where amended patent claims covering siRNAs with 15-21 base pairs were upheld.
