Silence Therapeutics settles patent dispute with Alnylam
UK-based biotech company Silence Therapeutics has settled a patent dispute and entered into a licence agreement with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals.
Yesterday, December 10, Silence announced a settlement and licence agreement with Alnylam, after a battle over the nerve damage drug Onpattro (patisiran).
Alnylam will license patents from Silence and pay royalties on net sales of the drug in the EU until 2023. The company has also acquired non-exclusive licences for patents to drugs including vutrisiran, givosiran, lumasiran, inclisiran, fitusiran, cemdisiran and all other investigational therapeutics in Alnylam’s current and future pipeline.
All legal proceedings between the companies have been “withdrawn with immediate effect” under the settlement.
The news comes six months after Silence, in July, said it had filed a case on supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) at the English Patents Court against Alnylam and The Medicines Company.
The claim asked the court to decide whether Silence is entitled to SPCs on certain late-stage products made by Alnylam and The Medicines Company, one of which was patisiran.
David Horn Solomon, CEO of Silence, said the company was excited to partner with Alnylam.
“We are excited for the potential of Onpattro to treat patients with hereditary ATTR amyloidosis polyneuropathy as the first RNAi medicine and are looking forward to following Alnylam’s achievements.”
He added: “At Silence Therapeutics we now look forward to focusing on advancing a pipeline of competitive and differentiated medicines that will benefit patients and caregivers.”
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