Blackstone Takes a Strategic Gamble on Alnylam Pharmaceuticals

Posted on 04/13/2020


The Blackstone Group signed a deal to provide up to US$ 2 billion to support a pharmaceutical company’s advancement of RNA interference (RNAi) medicines. Blackstone signed the deal with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The deal is anchored by Blackstone buying 50% of the royalties owed to Alnylam on global sales of inclisiran, an investigational RNAi therapeutic for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia, currently under review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to the press release, “Inclisiran is a twice-a-year, subcutaneously injected RNAi therapeutic that has been shown in a comprehensive Phase 3 program to reduce low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or “bad” cholesterol with an acceptable safety profile. If approved, this medicine is expected to help patients lower LDL cholesterol, a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of mortality in the U.S. and globally.” Alnylam is securing necessary capital to keep its RNAi drug pipeline going.

Blackstone Life Sciences and GSO Capital Partners, Blackstone’s credit platform, are the units working on this strategic deal.

Specifically, the transaction is comprised of the following components:
$1 billion in committed payments, led by Blackstone Life Sciences, to acquire 50 percent of Alnylam’s royalties and commercial milestones for inclisiran;
Up to $750 million in a first lien senior secured term loan led by GSO Capital;
Up to $150 million from Blackstone Life Sciences for development of Alnylam’s cardiometabolic programs vutrisiran and ALN-AGT (to be established based upon a non-binding letter of intent);
$100 million purchase of Alnylam common stock.

Alnylam is an existing tenant of Blackstone Real Estate company BioMed Realty. Alnylam is also in discussions with BioMed to expand its footprint in Cambridge, MA.

Advisors

Evercore served as financial advisor to Alnylam and Goodwin Procter LLP served as legal counsel to Alnylam. Ropes & Gray LLP and Wilkie LLP served as legal counsel to Blackstone.

Novartis has obtained global rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize inclisiran under a license and collaboration agreement with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. Inclisiran competes against Amgen’s Repatha and Regeneron and Sanofi’s Praluent.

The press release states, “Inclisiran, an investigational cholesterol-lowering treatment, was added to the Novartis pipeline via its acquisition of The Medicines Company. Inclisiran will potentially be the first and only LDL-C lowering siRNA treatment. It is intended to be administered by a healthcare professional by subcutaneous injection with an initial dose, again at 3 months and then every 6 months thereafter. Its twice-yearly dosing by subcutaneous injection may integrate seamlessly into a patient’s healthcare routine. As a siRNA, inclisiran is thought to harness the body’s natural process of clearing LDL-C from the bloodstream. Inclisiran is a double-stranded siRNA, conjugated on the sense strand with triantennary N-acetylgalactosamine (GalNAc) to facilitate uptake by hepatocytes. In hepatocytes, inclisiran increases LDL-C receptor recycling and expression on the hepatocyte cell surface, thereby increasing LDL-C uptake by hepatocytes and lowering LDL-C levels in the circulation. Data from each of the Phase III studies was recently published online, ahead of print, in The New England Journal of Medicine. A cardiovascular outcomes trial, ORION-4, is ongoing.

In the Phase III studies, inclisiran was reported to be well-tolerated with a safety profile similar to placebo. The most common adverse reactions reported (≥3% of patients treated with inclisiran and occurring more frequently than placebo) were, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, nasopharyngitis, arthralgia, back pain, dyspnea, bronchitis and upper respiratory tract infection. Adverse events at the injection site were more frequent with inclisiran than placebo and were generally mild and none were severe or persistent.”

Get News, People, and Transactions, Delivered to Your Inbox