Silence Therapeutics plc (AIM: SLN) ("Silence"), a leading RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutics company, announces that it has signed an agreement with miRagen Therapeutics, Inc. ("miRagen"), to assess the delivery potential of Silence's proprietary DBTC delivery system with miRagen's novel microRNA- (miRNA-) based therapeutics. MiRagen is a pre-clinical stage biopharmaceutical company founded to develop innovative miRNA-based therapeutics for the treatment of cardiovascular and muscle disease.
Under the terms of the agreement, miRagen will provide Silence with specific miRNA sequences, which Silence will formulate with its proprietary DBTC delivery system in order to develop multiple candidate drugs. MiRagen will undertake in vitro and in vivo studies of the candidate drugs developed under the agreement and select lead candidates for further evaluation. Financial terms of the collaboration are not disclosed.
DBTC is a proprietary RNAi delivery system developed by Silence. It is a novel lipid-based formulation that functionally delivers short interfering RNA (siRNA) to liver endothelial cells, hepatocytes and other liver cell types with high efficiency.
Thomas Christély, Chief Executive Officer of Silence Therapeutics, said: "We are delighted to be collaborating with miRagen. This is the third collaboration that we have recently signed to explore the use of Silence's delivery technologies for microRNAs, and the second that utilizes our novel DBTC delivery system that specifically delivers RNAi therapeutics to the liver. Whilst we remain internally focused on the delivery of our siRNA therapies, we continue to broaden the potential value of our proprietary delivery systems by collaborating with partners. Functional delivery to target cells is widely recognized as one of the greatest challenges facing most nucleic acid therapies. Our three proprietary RNAi delivery systems, AtuPLEX™, DACC and DBTC deliver effective doses of RNAi to key intracellular targets in vascular endothelium, lung and liver respectively, and provide our partners with a growing range of solutions to overcome their delivery challenges."
William S. Marshall, President and Chief Executive Officer of miRagen Therapeutics, said: "We are very pleased to have entered into this agreement with Silence Therapeutics, which gives us the opportunity to evaluate the efficacy of a promising delivery system in the context of microRNA manipulation. This is another example of miRagen's commitment to explore the potential of cutting-edge technologies with the ultimate goal of better serving patients in need."
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