Alnylam and Inceptive Form Strategic AI Collaboration to Accelerate the Discovery of RNAi Therapeutics
− Collaboration is valued at up to $2B with upfront consideration of $30M −
− Alliance pairs Alnylam’s RNAi platform and 20+ years of proprietary data with Inceptive’s foundation models and AI expertise to catalyze progress beyond rational drug design –
− Partnership designed to accelerate timelines and unlock innovative oligonucleotide designs −
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & PALO ALTO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY), the leading RNAi therapeutics company, and Inceptive Nucleics, Inc., which builds foundation models of life, today announced a strategic collaboration agreement to increase the pace of therapeutic innovation. The collaboration is valued at up to $2B with upfront consideration of $30M, including cash and the purchase of Inceptive equity. Inceptive is eligible to receive additional payments based on the achievement of preclinical, regulatory, and commercial sales milestones.
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Yvonne Greenstreet
By integrating Inceptive’s generative AI models with Alnylam’s R&D engine, Alnylam aims to accelerate the discovery of novel RNAi therapeutics as it advances ambitious pipeline expansion goals as part of its Alnylam 2030 strategy.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Inceptive to push the boundaries of what is possible in the discovery of RNAi medicines,” said Yvonne Greenstreet, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Alnylam. “Inceptive stands apart as one of the most visionary companies working at the intersection of AI and biology. It is led by pioneers of the AI revolution and driven by an ambitious mission to fundamentally reinvent how RNA medicines are designed. Together, we have an extraordinary opportunity to accelerate the creation of transformative medicines with a speed, ingenuity, and sophistication that simply has not been possible before.”
Inceptive’s foundation model learns the patterns underlying biology and hence can adapt to diverse therapeutic modalities without retraining. In joint exploratory work, the model achieved exceptional performance within weeks, uncovering meaningful biological insights from relatively small datasets to characterize siRNA molecules, the active ingredient in RNAi therapeutics.
“Most drug design still works through a process of trial and error, testing thousands of molecules and hoping something sticks,” said Jakob Uszkoreit, Inceptive co-founder and CEO. “Inceptive was built on a different premise: that life follows rules of such complexity that only AI can learn them. Alnylam’s breakthrough platform and scientific vision are an ideal match for AI. Together, we’re not just accelerating drug discovery; we’re changing the way we understand and improve life.”
Generalizable Platforms Open New Therapeutic Design Spaces
The collaboration pairs Alnylam’s RNAi leadership with Inceptive’s foundation models and AI expertise to catalyze and accelerate progress in nucleic-acid based drug design. Inceptive focuses on developing models for sequence-based medicines such as RNAi therapeutics, which were pioneered by Alnylam.
- Alnylam’s platform: An R&D engine that has produced six approved drugs, backed by 20+ years of proprietary siRNA data.
- Inceptive’s foundation models of life: AI models for sequence-based medicines that generalize across programs and continuously improve.
The collaboration seeks to advance siRNA design, by modeling target mRNAs and jointly exploring sequence space and novel chemical modifications to enhance potency and efficacy, and by predicting top-performing therapeutic candidates in preclinical models for further development by Alnylam. The goal is to help Alnylam prioritize the most promising molecules and improve experimental productivity.
By combining Alnylam’s deep biological expertise with Inceptive’s frontier models, the alliance advances Alnylam’s ambition to unlock new therapeutic innovation through frontier AI.The collaboration gives Alnylam access to Inceptive’s AI expertise and talent, including CEO Jakob Uszkoreit, co-inventor of the Transformer architecture (i.e., the “T” in ChatGPT), and pioneers of scalable, AI-enabled wet-lab training data generation methods.
About Alnylam Pharmaceuticals
Alnylam (Nasdaq: ALNY) is a leading global biopharmaceutical company and the pioneer of the RNA interference (RNAi) revolution. The Company is focused on developing transformative therapies with the potential to prevent, halt, or reverse disease. For more than two decades, Alnylam has advanced the Nobel-Prize-winning science of RNAi, delivering critical breakthroughs and six approved medicines. Alnylam has medicines available in more than 70 countries and a rapidly expanding and robust pipeline, in addition to consistently being recognized as an exceptional workplace and socially responsible organization. The Company is executing on its Alnylam 2030 strategy to accelerate innovation and scale impact to transform human health. For more information, please visit www.alnylam.com or follow Alnylam on X, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube.
About Inceptive
Inceptive builds AI foundation models of life that extrapolate from data to design breakthrough biological medicines beyond the reach of nature and traditional drug discovery. The company’s antedisciplinary team of AI researchers, biochemists, and engineers trains models on diverse biological data and designs experiments to generate missing training data at unprecedented scale. Inceptive partners with leading drugmakers to customize molecule-design models for discovery of sequence-based medicines such as siRNA, ASOs, peptides, and mRNA for applications such as in-vivo cell therapies. Founded in 2021 and backed by a16z, NVIDIA, S32 and Obvious, Inceptive is headquartered in Palo Alto with offices in Berlin and Zurich. Learn more at inceptive.com.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. All statements other than historical statements of fact regarding Alnylam’s expectations, beliefs, goals, plans or prospects including, without limitation, statements regarding the potential for Alnylam’s collaboration with Inceptive to achieve the goals for which it was established, including to increase the pace of therapeutic innovation, to catalyze and accelerate progress in nucleic-acid based drug design, accelerate timelines and unlock innovative oligonucleotide designs, and to accelerate the creation of transformative medicines with a speed, ingenuity and sophistication that has not been possible before; Alnylam’s ability to accelerate the discovery of novel RNAi therapeutics and to push the boundaries of what is possible in the discovery of RNAi medicines; and Alnylam’s ability to achieve the goals in its Alnylam 2030 strategy should be considered forward-looking statements. Actual results and future plans may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important risks, uncertainties and other factors, including, without limitation, risks and uncertainties relating to: Alnylam’s ability to successfully execute on its Alnylam 2030 strategy; Alnylam’s ability to successfully launch, market and sell Alnylam’s approved products globally, including AMVUTTRA; Alnylam’s ability to discover and develop novel drug candidates and delivery approaches and successfully demonstrate the efficacy and safety of its product candidates; the pre-clinical and clinical results for Alnylam’s product candidates; actions or advice of regulatory agencies and Alnylam’s ability to obtain and maintain regulatory approval for its product candidates, as well as favorable pricing and reimbursement; delays, interruptions or failures in the manufacture and supply of Alnylam’s marketed products or its product candidates; obtaining, maintaining and protecting intellectual property; Alnylam’s ability to manage its growth and operating expenses through disciplined investment in operations; Alnylam’s ability to maintain strategic business collaborations; Alnylam’s dependence on third parties for the development and commercialization of certain products, including Roche, Novartis, Sanofi, and Regeneron; the outcome of litigation and government investigations; the risk of future litigation and government investigations; and unexpected expenditures; as well as those risks and uncertainties more fully discussed in the “Risk Factors” filed with Alnylam’s 2025 Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as may be updated from time to time in Alnylam’s subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and in other filings that Alnylam makes with the SEC. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent Alnylam’s views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing its views as of any subsequent date. Alnylam explicitly disclaims any obligation, except to the extent required by law, to update any forward-looking statements.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260603131911/en/
Media Contact — Alnylam:
Christine Akinc | [email protected] | 617-682-4340
Media Contact — Inceptive:
Benedetta Bernasconi | [email protected]| 650-260-3133
KEYWORDS: United States North America California Massachusetts
INDUSTRY KEYWORDS: Technology Research Health Technology Biotechnology Health Pharmaceutical General Health Science Artificial Intelligence
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