ALNYLAM GRANTED FUNDAMENTAL RNAI PATENT BY THE EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals has received a notice of grant from the European Patent Office for an important new RNAi patent titled, "Inhibiting gene expression with double-stranded RNA," to which Alnylam has exclusive therapeutic rights, through its existing license agreement with CRT.

The newly granted patent includes broad claims covering therapeutic use of double-stranded RNA expressed from endogenous templates or expression vectors to mediate RNA interference (RNAi). This is the first of multiple European patents expected to stem from the RNAi patent application filed by CRT based on the pioneering work of Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz and colleagues Florence Wianny, David Glover and Martin Evans at the University of Cambridge, England.

Patents based on this application have previously been issued by the Registry of Patents in Singapore and by the Australian Patent Office. Alnylam holds worldwide exclusive therapeutic rights to this CRT patent under its 2003 license agreement with CRT.