LEXINGTON, Mass. & NEW YORK– Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: DRNA) (“Dicerna”) and Royalty Pharma plc (Nasdaq: RPRX) (“Royalty Pharma”) today announced that Royalty Pharma has acquired Dicerna’s royalty interest in OXLUMO™ (lumasiran) for an upfront cash payment of $180 million and up to $60 million in contingent sales-based milestone payments. OXLUMO, which has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) for the treatment of primary hyperoxaluria (PH) type 1, is marketed by Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Alnylam”).
“We are very pleased to have entered into this agreement with Royalty Pharma, which is recognized as the leader in royalty acquisitions across the life sciences industry,” said Douglas Fambrough, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Dicerna. “This agreement with Royalty Pharma reflects our mutually held recognition of the importance of this market and the high unmet need for patients with PH – a population that Dicerna is also seeking to address with our lead product candidate, nedosiran, which we are developing for PH types 1, 2 and 3.”
“We are delighted to accomplish this transaction with Dicerna, an emerging leading player in RNAi therapeutics,” said Pablo Legorreta, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Royalty Pharma. “RNAi represents a promising new approach to medicine, and OXLUMO is consistent with our focus on highly innovative therapies addressing areas of significant unmet need. We are gratified to have established this initial relationship with Dicerna, which could open the door for future potential collaboration opportunities to bring new RNAi therapies to patients.”
Dicerna became entitled to royalties on worldwide net product sales of OXLUMO as part of a 2020 non-exclusive intellectual property cross-license agreement between Dicerna and Alnylam related to the companies’ PH programs. Dicerna is entitled to royalties in the mid to high single digits based on OXLUMO global net sales.
This transaction, together with Dicerna’s cash, cash equivalents, held-to-maturity investments and anticipated milestone and other payments from existing collaborations, is expected to extend Dicerna’s projected cash runway and be sufficient to fund the execution of its current clinical and operating plan into 2024.
J. Wood Capital Advisors acted as Dicerna’s sole financial advisor and Latham & Watkins acted as legal advisor to Dicerna on the transaction. Gibson Dunn, Jones Day and Maiwald acted as legal advisors to Royalty Pharma.
