Dive Brief:
- Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. and competitor Dicerna Pharmaceuticals Inc. on Friday announced a settlement of their long-ongoing trade secrets lawsuit related to RNA-interference technology.
- Dicerna agreed to pay Alnylam $2 million, plus 983,208 shares of Dicerna common stock. It will also pay Alnylam another $13 million over the next four years. All told, the settlement is valued at $25 million.
- Per the settlement, Alnylam will drop all claims of trade secret misappropriation made in Massachusetts State Court against Dicerna, while Dicerna will dismiss counterclaims and claims of anti-competitive practices made against Alnylam in Massachusetts Federal Court. Neither company admits wrongdoing.
Dive Insight:
The back-and-forth lawsuits between the two companies began in 2015, with Alnylam alleging Dicerna misappropriated proprietary information related to GalNAc conjugate technology used to deliver RNAi therapeutics.
The rub came when Merck & Co. decided in 2014 to sell off all of the tech and intellectual property related to the RNAi technology it acquired in its 2006 takeover of Sirna Therapeutics. A bidding war ensued — that included both Alnylam and Dicerna — and resulted in Alnylam putting forth the winning offer.
"Alnylam has led the discovery and development of GalNAc conjugate technology for delivery of RNA therapeutics, including through technology we obtained from our $175 million Sirna Therapeutics acquisition in our 2014 transaction with Merck," said Alnylam President and COO Barry Greene in 2015.
Several months later, Alnylam alleged Dicerna "resorted to other means to obtain the confidential information and trade secrets" from Sirna, including hiring former Sirna scientists.
The companies have exchanged lawsuits ever since and were facing a jury trial scheduled for Monday, April 23.
By settling, the two RNAi developers have avoided what could've been a costly and drawn-out legal battle. In addition, Alnylam secures some limits on the research work Dicerna can pursue.
Dicerna is "restricted in its development and other activities relating to oligonucleotide-based therapeutics directed toward a defined set of Alnylam targets, for periods ranging from 18 months up to four years," according to Alnylam's April 20 statement.
The settlement comes potentially months ahead of Alnylam gaining approval for its first RNAi-based product, a rare disease treatment called patisiran. The drug has a user fee action date of Aug. 11.