On May 25, 2021 Silence Therapeutics plc, AIM:SLN and Nasdaq: SLN ("Silence" or "the Company"), a leader in the discovery, development and delivery of novel short interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA) therapeutics for the treatment of diseases with significant unmet medical need, reported receipt of the remaining $40.0 million from AstraZeneca, a global biopharmaceutical company, due as part of AstraZeneca’s $80.0 million cash and equity investment for the siRNA collaboration announced in March 2020 (Press release, Silence Therapeutics, MAY 25, 2021, View Source [SID1234580559]). The $40.0 million is included in Silence’s reported £97.5 million proforma cash balance at 2020 year-end1.
Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:
Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing
Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!
The companies also started work on two undisclosed targets and are on-track to initiate work on five targets within the first three years of the collaboration. The collaboration is focused on leveraging Silence’s proprietary mRNAi GOLD platform to discover and develop siRNA therapeutics for cardiovascular, renal, metabolic (CVRM) and respiratory diseases.
Mark Rothera, President and CEO of Silence, commented: "We’ve made significant progress in our collaboration with AstraZeneca over the past year and are well positioned to initiate work on five disease targets within the first three years. This underscores our firm commitment to rapidly advance our pipeline through both our wholly owned programs and partnership programs."
Regina Fritsche Danielson, Senior Vice President and Head of Research and Early Development, CVRM, BioPharmaceuticals R&D, AstraZeneca said: "We continue to see great promise in Silence’s established siRNA platform to develop novel medicines across our key therapy areas in cardiovascular, renal, metabolic and respiratory diseases. We look forward to our continued partnership and advancing our discovery efforts to address unmet medical needs."
Under the collaboration, AstraZeneca will pay Silence an option fee of $10 million for each selected target at the point of candidate nomination. For each target selected, Silence is eligible to receive up to $140 million in development milestones and up to $250 million in commercialization milestones as well as tiered royalties on net sales. Silence is responsible for the discovery stage up to the point of candidate nomination at which point AstraZeneca takes over responsibility and costs for further development. Silence retains responsibility for manufacturing of material to support GLP toxicology studies and Phase I clinical studies, costs for such manufacture are covered by AstraZeneca. Silence also has the option to negotiate for co-development of two selected programs of its choice starting from Phase II.