The death of a hemophilia patient due to a blood clot has forced Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY) to temporarily suspend studies of its gene-silencing drug fitusarin, the company said Thursday.
The new safety setback comes at a particularly bad time for the Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech company, developers of drugs based on a technology known as RNA interference, or RNAi. In the next days to weeks, Alnylam is expecting to receive and announce results from its first phase 3 clinical trial for a different drug called patisiran in a rare nerve condition.
Last year, Alnylam scrapped the development of a third RNAi drug, revusiran, because of safety issues, including an unacceptable number of patient deaths in a phase 3 study.
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