Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, an RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutics company located in Cambridge, MA, and Blackstone Life Sciences, a private investment platform, announced on April 13, 2020 that they are entering into a strategic collaboration under which Blackstone will provide up to $2 billion to fund Alnylam’s RNAi drugs to treat a range of diseases.

Through the agreement, Blackstone will offer $1 billion in committed payments for 50% of Alnylam’s royalties and commercial milestones for inclisiran, an investigational RNAi therapeutic for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia, according to an Alnylam press release.

Blackstone will also offer up to $750 million in a first lien senior secured term loan, up to $150 million for the development of Alnylam’s cardiometabolic programs vutrisiran and ALN-AGT, and $100 million for the purchase of Alnylam’s common stock.

“Alnylam is focused on building a top-tier biopharmaceutical company, advancing RNAi therapeutics as a whole new class of medicines with transformative potential for patients around the world. This exciting new relationship with Blackstone brings us much closer to that goal, securing our bridge towards a self-sustainable financial profile that we believe can now be achieved without any need for Alnylam to access the equity markets in the future,” said John Maraganore, PhD, CEO of Alnylam, in the press release. “A central component of this strategic relationship is a partial monetization of our royalty for inclisiran. If approved, we believe this therapy holds enormous promise as a potential game-changer in hypercholesterolemia management.”

“Alnylam’s RNAi technology represents one of the most promising and rapidly advancing frontiers in biology and drug development today, and aligns perfectly with our investment strategy,” added Nicholas Galakatos, PhD, global head of Blackstone Life Sciences, in the press release. “Our collaboration with Alnylam provides non-dilutive access to capital to advance important new medicines in development across several disease indications including heart disease, the leading cause of death in the [United States] and globally.”