Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Sirna-027 for AMD is officially dead.

Sirna what? Sirna-027 was the much ballyhooed lead drug from Sirna Therapeutics, which the company licensed to AGN in 2005: #msg-7926760. (MRK acquired Sirna in 2006: #msg-14401261.)

Sirna-027 produced good phase-1 results; the biggest problem may have been that the duration of the clinical effect was too short, as can be seen from the table in #msg-12579143.

I’ve been pretty sure that this program was dead for quite some time because AGN never talked about it. Now, it’s 100% — read the last paragraph of this Reuters newswire:

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINN0746779920081207?rpc

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“…we just completed a collaboration with Allergan looking at the eye and targets within the eye. Now we are initiating our own efforts within that area.”
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With the demise of Sirna-027, OPK (#msg-21124315, #msg-25128755) and PFE (#msg-13574577) are, to my knowledge, the only companies still testing RNAi in the clinic as a treatment for AMD. MRK at one time had a JV with ALNY to develop an AMD drug, but the collaboration made no progress and was dissolved in 2006.