SIRNA, TARGETED GENETICS FORM HUNTINGTON'S DISEASE COLLABORATION

Sirna Therapeutics and Targeted Genetics have established a collaboration to develop a novel therapy for the treatment of Huntington's Disease (HD), an incurable neurodegenerative disorder.

The collaboration significantly advances Sirna's HD program by using Targeted Genetics' adeno-associated virus (AAV) delivery platform to develop an HD product.

The focus of the collaboration will be the development of a therapeutic short interfering RNA (siRNA) targeting the gene that encodes the Huntington's Disease protein. The siRNA will be expressed from an AAV-vector. RNAi is a mechanism used by cells to regulate the expression of genes and replication of viruses. The RNA interference mechanism uses siRNA to induce the destruction of target RNA using naturally occurring cellular protein machinery.