LONDON & DUBLIN– Silence Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: SLN), 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, and Mallinckrodt plc (OTCMKTS:MNKKQ), a global biopharmaceutical company, today announced filing of a clinical trial application (CTA) for SLN501, an siRNA targeting the complement C3 protein, triggering a $3 million milestone payment to Silence.
Craig Tooman, President and Chief Executive Officer at Silence, commented: “The CTA submission for SLN501 represents another key milestone in our Mallinckrodt collaboration leveraging our proprietary mRNAi GOLD™ platform for complement-mediated diseases. This highlights the importance of partnerships to expand our pipeline opportunities while also providing non-dilutive financing to support our development activities.”
Mark Trudeau, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mallinckrodt, said: “We remain excited about the potential of Silence’s mRNAi GOLD™ platform to address the unmet needs of patients suffering from a range of complement-mediated diseases. We look forward to entering into the clinic with our first product candidate, SLN501, in the first half of this year as well as progressing work on two other complement targets.”
Under the collaboration, Silence is responsible for executing the development program for SLN501 until the end of phase I, after which Mallinckrodt will assume responsibility for clinical development and global commercialization. The phase I study is expected to start in the first half of 2022.
In July 2019, Silence and Mallinckrodt initiated a collaboration focused on leveraging Silence’s proprietary mRNAi GOLD™ platform to develop siRNAs for complement-mediated diseases. Under the agreement, Silence received an upfront payment of $20 million from Mallinckrodt for an exclusive worldwide license to siRNAs developed against one complement target, C3, and options to license siRNAs against up to two additional complement targets, each of which Mallinckrodt exercised in 2021 at $2 million per target. Silence is responsible for preclinical activities and for executing development of each target through phase 1, after which Mallinckrodt will assume responsibility for clinical development and global commercialization. Silence is also eligible to receive tiered double-digit royalties on net sales for each product candidate and up to $2 billion in total milestone payments across all three targets.
