Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation a leader in RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutics, announced that Roche disclosed earlier today that it plans to undertake a corporate restructuring. As part of this restructuring, Roche stated it intends to discontinue activities in certain areas of research and early development including its research in RNAi.
Dr. Mark J. Murray, Tekmira's President and CEO, said, "We have enjoyed a productive relationship with Roche for the past several years and respect their strategic decision to focus resources in other areas. At Tekmira, we believe strongly in the future of RNAi drug development and we are committed to advancing our development pipeline and supporting our partners using our leading LNP delivery technology. This confidence is supported not only by the progress we making with our own RNAi-based programs but also by the continued advancement we are seeing across the industry."
"We do not expect Roche's decision to have a substantive impact on our business going forward. The majority of our revenue now comes from our exclusive manufacturing relationship with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and our growing relationship with the United States Government's Transformational Medical Technologies program. We expect these will be the principal drivers of revenue through 2011, along with the ongoing research relationships we have with Pfizer, Takeda and Bristol-Myers Squibb as well as the opportunity for new business relationships."
In May 2009, Tekmira and Roche entered into a product development agreement to advance Roche's RNAi product candidates into human clinical testing.
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