Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY), a leading RNAi therapeutics company, announced today the election of Victor Dzau, M.D. to its Board of Directors. Dr. Dzau is Chancellor for Health Affairs at Duke University, and President and Chief Executive Officer of the Duke University Health System. He is also James B. Duke Professor of Medicine and Director of Molecular and Genomic Vascular Biology at Duke.
“Victor is widely recognized as a pioneer across many dimensions of medical research and education, and notably has a strong commitment to the translation of innovative discoveries toward medical practice,” said John Maraganore, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Alnylam. “We are confident that Victor’s deep experience in medical research will strengthen our efforts to build a major new biopharmaceutical company founded on RNAi. Given the progress with our pipeline into development and clinical trials, the addition of Victor to our team comes at a highly opportune time in the growth of our business.”
“The breakthrough field of RNAi represents the opportunity to create an entirely new product platform for the discovery and development of innovative medicines. I have been impressed with Alnylam’s commitment to scientific excellence and their progress in advancing this promising technology into clinical studies,” said Dr. Dzau. “I am very excited to be a part of the important work that Alnylam is doing and look forward to working with the outstanding team in place and contributing to this effort.”
Prior to his appointment at Duke in 2004, Dr. Dzau was the Hersey Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Physician-in-Chief and Director of Research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston. Before his work at Harvard and Brigham and Women’s, he served as Arthur Bloomfield Professor and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Dzau’s academic interests are in cardiovascular translational research and molecular therapeutics. Dr. Dzau has been the recipient of many awards and honors and has served on numerous committees and advisory boards, including the Advisory Council to the Director of the National Institutes of Health and the boards of Stanford Health System, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Partners Healthcare, and the Harvard Clinical Research Institute. Currently, he serves as a member of the Board of Directors for both Duke University Health System and Genzyme Corporation. Dr. Dzau earned his M.D. from McGill University in Montreal and did his postgraduate training at Harvard Medical School.
About Alnylam
Alnylam is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics based on RNA interference, or RNAi. The company is applying its therapeutic expertise in RNAi to address significant medical needs, many of which cannot effectively be addressed with small molecules or antibodies, the current major classes of drugs. Alnylam is building a pipeline of RNAi therapeutics; its lead program is in Phase I human clinical trials for the treatment of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection. RSV infects nearly every child at least once by the age of two and accounts for more than 100,000 hospitalizations annually in the U.S. pediatric population. RSV infection also poses a great risk to the elderly and other adults with compromised immune systems. The company’s leadership position in fundamental patents, technology, and know-how relating to RNAi has enabled it to form major alliances with leading companies including Merck, Medtronic, Novartis, and Biogen Idec. The company, founded in 2002, maintains global headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has an additional operating unit in Kulmbach, Germany. For more information, visit www.alnylam.com.
Alnylam Forward-Looking Statements
Various statements in this release concerning our future expectations, plans, and prospects, including statements relating to our growth, our ability to build a new product platform for the discovery of RNAi therapeutics, the success of our pre-clinical and clinical trials and the potential for RNAi therapeutics, constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including risks related to: our approach to discover and develop novel drugs, which is unproven and may never lead to marketable products; our ability to fund and the results of further pre-clinical and clinical trials; obtaining, maintaining and protecting intellectual property utilized by our products; our ability to enforce our patents against infringers and to defend our patent portfolio against challenges from third parties; our ability to obtain additional funding to support our business activities; our dependence on third parties for development, manufacture, marketing, sales, and distribution of products; the successful development of our product candidates, all of which are in early stages of development; obtaining regulatory approval for products; competition from others using technology similar to ours and others developing products for similar uses; our dependence on collaborators; and our short operating history; as well as those risks more fully discussed in the “Risk Factors” section of our most recent report on Form 10-K on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent our views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.