The Medicines Co.

Alnylam will hand over $10m upfront to secure access to 15 novel genetic targets identified by Tenaya for heart disease. Credit: surprisestock / Shutterstock.com. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals has forged a discovery collaboration worth up to $1.23bn with cardiovascular disease specialist, Tenaya Therapeutics. Through this partnership, Alnylam will harness Tenaya’s capabilities to identify up to 15 novel genetic targets involved in heart disease. In return, Alnylam will hand over up to $10m upfront, while pledging to pay out up to $1.13bn in development and commercial milestone payments linked to any drugs created through the partnership. However, Tenaya bears responsibility to yield targets up to Alnylam’s standards, as the $10m upfront fee could be subject to a $500k reduction per candidate for up to eight nominated targets that don’t meet the latter company’s criteria. Once these targets have been identified, Alnylam and Tenaya will collaborate for around two years to mutually validate them through both in vitro and in vivo methods. Under the terms of this deal, Alnylam will reimburse Tenaya for “full-time employees and out-of-pocket costs and expenses”, as per a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). After Tenaya has fulfilled its end of the deal, Alnylam is hoping to harness these targets to create disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) for heart disease, though no fine details on specific indications were shared. Alnylam will assume responsibility for the subsequent development and commercialisation of any drugs created from the targets identified through this partnership. Alnylam sets heart on cardiovascular market This deal could see Alnylam further its presence in the cardiovascular market, as the company recently secured US and EU approval for its silent interfering RNA (siRNA) therapy, Amvuttra (vutrisiran), in ATTR amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM). Analysts at GlobalData, parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology , forecast that Amvuttra will bring in $7.8bn for the company in 2031, meaning the drug will likely continue to be Alnylam’s most lucrative asset. GlobalData Strategic Intelligence US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate? Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis. By GlobalData Learn more about Strategic Intelligence Alnylam was also responsible for the co-development of Novartis’ blockbuster cholesterol-lowering therapy, Leqvio (inclisiran), which GlobalData forecasts will make $3.9bn in 2031. Novartis previously absorbed the commercialisation rights to the drug through its $9.7bn acquisition of Alnylam’s Leqvio development partner, The Medicines Company, in 2019. To expand its reach in this market, Alnylam is also running late-stage clinical trials on its investigational assets. This includes the Phase III HELIOS-B study (NCT04153149) evaluating vutrisiran in ATTR-CM, as well as the Phase III ZENITH (NCT07181109) trial assessing zilebesiran for the treatment of hypertension alongside collaborator, Roche. Cardiovascular deals garner interest In recent times, there has been a notable uptick in pharma deals within the cardiovascular disease space. In February 2026, GSK acquired Canadian biotech 35Pharma for $950m , thus absorbing its range of investigational new drug (IND)-stage candidates for both cardiopulmonary diseases and heart failure. Meanwhile, Novartis inked a research partnership with Unnatural Products (UNP) worth up to $1.7bn in the same month, which will see the pair join forces to develop macrocyclic peptide-based therapies for cardiovascular disease. According to GlobalData’s Pharmaceutical Intelligence Center, M&As were the most common form of cardiovascular-centric deal in 2025, forming 44% of the agreements during the year.

US-based biotechs Tenaya Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: TNYA) and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ALNY) entered into a research collaboration agreement to discover and validate novel genetic targets for the development of RNA interference cardiovascular disease therapeutics. Under the deal, Tenaya will apply its proprietary target identification and validation platform to validate up to 15 gene targets over a two-year term, after which Alnylam will hold responsibility for all development and commercialization of RNAi-based therapeutics against validated targets. No drug candidates or specific molecular targets were disclosed within the announcement. Tenaya will receive up to USD 10 million in upfront payments along with reimbursement for research costs incurred during the two-year validation period. Alnylam will be responsible for funding all downstream development and commercialization. Tenaya is eligible for up to USD 1.13 billion in development and commercial milestone payments contingent on all 15 validated genetic targets heart disease programs reaching approval. The collaboration leverages complementary capabilities from each company. Tenaya contributes a suite of integrated tools for modality-agnostic target identification and validation, including human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes, high-throughput in vitro screening, imaging analysis, machine learning algorithms, and engineered heart tissue models. The company states these capabilities have generated more than 150 genetic targets to date and contributed to its clinical-stage pipeline, which includes TN-201, a gene therapy for MYBPC3-associated hypertrophic cardiomyopathy; TN-401, a gene therapy for PKP2-associated arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy; and TN-301, a small molecule HDAC6 inhibitor for heart failure. Alnylam brings its established RNAi therapeutics platform, which uses small interfering RNAs conjugated to GalNAc delivery systems to silence disease-driving genes at the mRNA level in hepatocytes. The collaboration expands the firm’s cardiovascular disease pipeline by sourcing novel genetic targets, and follows Alynlam’s August 2025 collaboration with Scenic Biotech for novel drug discovery, and a 2021 deal with PeptiDream for the discovery and development of peptide-siRNA conjugates. Alnylam has previously applied its RNAi platform to cardiovascular targets including PCSK9, leading to the discovery of inclisiran, licensed to The Medicines Company and subsequently acquired by Novartis in January 2020 as part of a USD 9.7 billion acquisition. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Comment * Name * Email * Website

Novartis plans to pay about $12 billion to acquire Avidity Biosciences, a neuromuscular drug developer that is months away from asking the FDA to approve its lead treatment candidate. The Sunday deal, for $72 per share $RNA , will deepen Novartis’ presence in RNA and give it access to three drugs that could be sent to the FDA for approval requests by the end of next year. That includes candidates in late-stage testing for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), and myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1). It marks the second-largest biotech acquisition announcement of the year, behind Johnson & Johnson’s $14.6 billion takeover of Intra-Cellular Therapies. Avidity’s platform and assets “bolster our commitment to delivering innovative, targeted and potentially first-in-class medicines to treat devastating, progressive neuromuscular diseases,” Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan said in the announcement. Rumors of a potential buyout had been swirling for months. The Financial Times first reported talks about a potential deal on Aug. 6. The price announced Sunday represents a major premium of almost double the company’s value the day before the FT report. A few weeks after that report, Avidity shared more data and then raised $690 million from a public offering. The large stock sale cast doubt on whether a buyer would emerge. Novartis is in search of new medicines to reload its pipeline, and Avidity’s three drug candidates could help shore up some of the sales erosion expected from Novartis’ blockbuster heart drug Entresto, which is now facing its first generic competitors . As part of the deal, Avidity will spin out a new company with its early-stage R&D work in precision cardiology, including AOC 1086 and AOC 1072. The spinout will include Avidity’s collaborations with Bristol Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly, it said . Other pharma companies have made similar “spinco” moves when inking acquisitions, such as Pfizer’s Biohaven deal and Lilly’s Scorpion acquisition. Avidity chief program officer Kathleen Gallagher will lead the spinout as CEO, and current Avidity CEO Sarah Boyce will chair the new board.  The new company will be publicly traded and get $270 million in cash to support its pipeline. Earlier this month, Avidity said it expects to submit its first BLA for accelerated approval in the first quarter of 2026. That submission would be for delpacibart zotadirsen in certain patients with DMD. It had initially aimed for an FDA review at the end of this year, but delayed those plans to provide additional manufacturing and quality data. In the second half of 2026, Avidity plans to ask for accelerated approval of another drug, called delpacibart braxlosiran, for treating FSHD. It also plans to seek approval of a third candidate, called delpacibart etedesiran, in patients with DM1. If the FSHD and DM1 programs come to fruition, they could mark the first approved medicines for the conditions, Avidity has said . The company had 391 full-time employees as of Feb. 14, according to an SEC filing . It went public via an IPO in June 2020. The acquisition adds to the recent wave of pharma dealmaking. Avidity is the 11th biotech buyout of the past four weeks, according to an Endpoints News tally, and it marks Novartis’ largest deal in recent years. In 2019, it agreed to pay almost $10 billion to buy The Medicines Company . This year, Novartis has announced M&A moves for anticoagulant antibody developer Anthos Therapeutics , kidney microRNA specialist Regulus Therapeutics , and cardiovascular company Tourmaline Bio . San Diego has been a go-to market for Novartis’ dealmakers. Avidity marks Novartis’ fourth — and largest — biotech buyout in the region in recent years. That shopping spree includes Regulus, the neuro gene therapy maker Kate Therapeutics , and neuromuscular siRNA startup DTx Pharma . The city will be central to its American R&D efforts going forward. Novartis plans to open a $1.1 billion R&D biomedical hub in the city “between 2028 and 2029,” the company said in April as part of a broader push to boost stateside manufacturing and R&D .