MSD to purchase $1.1bn research firm

Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) has announced that it has entered into an agreement to purchase Sirna Therapeutics for $1.1 billion (580 million pounds).

Researching a “new class of medicines”, Sirna is a biotechnology company that specialises in RNA interference (RNAi) technology to help treat a range of diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration, respiratory syncytial virus and Huntington’s disease.

Sirna already has development alliances with GlaxoSmithKline for respiratory disease drugs, as well as Allergan for a new treatment for “wet” age-related macular degeneration, named Sirna-027.

MSD has been conducting research into RNAi technology since the purchase of Rosetta Inpharmatics in 2001 and it claims that the use of new treatments developed using this method has “great promise” in cancer research.

Peter S Kim, president of MSD Research Laboratories, remarked: “We are delighted about our agreement to acquire Sirna Therapeutics, a company that has established a leading presence in the critically important area of RNAi.”

He added that the use of this technology could “significantly change” the manner in which drugs are discovered, allowing currently unmet clinical needs to be addressed in future.

Several other major pharmaceutical companies have employed RNAi technology or announced partnerships with biotechnology companies in order to gain entry to the market, including Pfizer, Biogen Idec and Abbott Laboratories.

Recently, Sidney Taurel, chairman and chief executive officer of Eli Lilly, told the Economic Club of Florida that technologies like biomarkers and RNAi means the industry is “in the early stages of a major leap forward in new drug discovery”.