The settlement resulted in the agreement that Silence would receive low royalty payments on Alnylam net sales of Onpattro (patisaran) in the European Union, with tiered royalty payments between .33% and 1% through to 2023.
The litigation proceedings occurred after Silence Therapeutics alleged that Alnylam’ Onpattro infringed on patent claims issued to Silence for RNA interference (RNAi) therapies. Silence’s pipeline includes multiple RNAi drug candidates, developed through its proprietary platform.
Onpattro, an RNAi product, was launched by Alynlam in the US and Europe in 2018.
Under the agreement, all ongoing court proceedings will be dismissed. Silence will also grant Alnylam a non-exclusive license to all relevant patents for all current and future products commercialized by Alnylam or a licensee.
A spokesperson for Alynlam told us, “While we believed we would prevail before the courts and were fully prepared to go to trial, patent litigation is inherently unpredictable, highly technical and the risks of uncertain outcomes are unavoidable hence our decision to enter into a settlement with Silence, on terms very favorable to Alnylam.”
The spokesperson further explained that there was no admission of validity or infringement in the settlement, but the decision allowed the company to avoid extra expense and distraction of multi-country litigation that spread over two continents – Alnylam’s corporate headquarters is located in the US and Silence’s is in the UK.
