LONDON– 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, today announced that it will receive a $2.0 million cash payment from Hansoh Pharmaceutical Group Company Limited (“Hansoh”) following the achievement of an undisclosed preclinical milestone.
Silence and Hansoh entered a collaboration in October 2021 to develop siRNAs leveraging Silence’s proprietary mRNAi GOLD™ platform for three undisclosed targets. Under the terms of the agreement, Silence has exclusive rights to the first two targets in all territories except the China region (Greater China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan). Hansoh has the exclusive option to license rights to those two targets in the China region and global rights to the third target.
Hansoh made a $16 million upfront payment to Silence and Silence is eligible to receive up to $1.3 billion in additional development, regulatory and commercial milestones. This marks the first research milestone achieved under the collaboration. Silence is also eligible to receive royalties tiered from low double-digit to mid-teens on Hansoh net product sales.
Silence Therapeutics is developing a new generation of medicines by harnessing the body’s natural mechanism of RNA interference, or RNAi, to inhibit the expression of specific target genes thought to play a role in the pathology of diseases with significant unmet need. Silence’s proprietary mRNAi GOLD™ platform can be used to create siRNAs (short interfering RNAs) that precisely target and silence disease-associated genes in the liver, which represents a substantial opportunity. Silence’s wholly owned product candidates include SLN360 designed to address the high and prevalent unmet medical need in reducing cardiovascular risk in people born with high levels of lipoprotein(a) and SLN124 designed to address rare hematological diseases.
