AstraZeneca and Silence Therapeutics co-development siRNA therapeutics

AstraZeneca will collaborate with Silence Therapeutics to discover, develop and commercialise small interfering RNA (siRNA) therapeutics for the treatment of cardiovascular (CV), renal, metabolic and respiratory diseases.

This multi-target collaboration will harness Silence’s established siRNA platform to identify and progress liver-based targets, as well as developing new delivery approaches for targeting other tissues such as the heart, lung and kidney. Targeted delivery to these other tissues represents a new opportunity to treat cardiovascular, renal, metabolic and respiratory diseases.

Mene Pangalos, EVP BioPharmaceuticals R&D, AstraZeneca said, “This collaboration with Silence adds an exciting new modality, siRNA, into our drug discovery toolbox. Importantly we can apply this drug modality across our key therapy areas in cardiovascular, renal and metabolism and respiratory to target novel pathways not amenable to more traditional drug discovery approaches.”