Alnylam Pharmaceuticals this week announced that it has taken a non-exclusive license to RNAi-related intellectual property held by UK technology management firm Plant Bioscience Limited.
As reported by Gene Silencing News, PBL was recently awarded a patent that broadly covers the use of small RNAs to trigger post-transcriptional gene silencing and is based on the pioneering work of the Sainsbury Laboratory researchers David Baulcombe and Andrew Hamilton (GSN 3/8/2012).
PBL, which is jointly owned by the Sainsbury Laboratory, the John Innes Center, and the UK's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, has made it a goal to non-exclusively license the intellectual property to as many parties as possible, PBL Managing Director Jan Chojecki said at the time.
The Alnylam deal “endorses the strength of our patent estate in the RNAi field and we look forward to working with other partners through our non-exclusive licensing strategy in agricultural, research, diagnostic, and therapeutic commercial applications,” he said in a statement this week.
Terms of the arrangement were not disclosed.