Alkermes Drops on FDA Rejection, Glaxo’s SR One Backs Dicerna, Biogen Reworks Genentech Alliance, & More Boston-Are Life Sciences News

continue to develop the drug for adult myeloid leukemia.

—Ryan took a look at Cambridge-based RNAi drug developer Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ALNY]]), a month after it laid off about 25 percent of its stuff in expectation that its five-year collaboration with Novartis would end. The Swiss drug giant has paid Alnylam $125 million since 2005 to access its gene-silencing technology and has declined to extend the agreement for another $100 million. Novartis will continue to pursue 31 drug targets with the technology, though.

—Watertown, MA-based Dicerna Pharmaceuticals said it wrapped up a $4 million investment from SR One, the venture investing unit of London-based drug company GlaxoSmithKline. The funding brings Dicerna’s Series B financing round from $25 million to $29 million. Dicerna is using RNA interferance-based technology to develop drugs that shut down the expression of disease genes, for the treatment of different types of cancers.

—Weston, MA-based Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: [[ticker:BIIB]]) and Genentech announced they would be revamping an agreement to develop new antibodies against against CD20, the same cellular target of the hit cancer drug rituximab (Rituxan).

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Author: Erin Kutz

Erin Kutz has a background in covering business, politics and general news. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Erin previously worked in the Boston bureau of Reuters, where she wrote articles on the investment management and mutual fund industries. While in college, she researched for USA Today reporter Jayne O’Donnell’s book, Gen Buy: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail. She also spent a semester in Washington, DC, reporting Capitol Hill stories as a correspondent for two Connecticut newspapers and interning in the Money section of USA Today, where she assisted with coverage on the retail and small business beats. Erin got her first taste of reporting at Boston University’s independent student newspaper, as a city section reporter and fact checker and editor of the paper’s weekly business section.