Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALNY) and Inceptive Nucleics, Inc. announced a strategic collaboration valued at up to $2 billion to accelerate the discovery of RNA interference therapeutics. The agreement includes $30 million in upfront consideration comprising cash and equity purchase.

Under the partnership, Alnylam will integrate Inceptive's artificial intelligence foundation models with its RNA interference platform and proprietary data spanning over 20 years. Inceptive is eligible for additional payments based on achieving preclinical, regulatory and commercial sales milestones.

The collaboration aims to advance small interfering RNA design by modeling target messenger RNAs and exploring sequence space and chemical modifications to enhance therapeutic potency. Inceptive's AI models will predict top-performing therapeutic candidates for further development by Alnylam.

"We're thrilled to partner with Inceptive to push the boundaries of what is possible in the discovery of RNAi medicines," said Yvonne Greenstreet, Chief Executive Officer of Alnylam. The partnership supports Alnylam's pipeline expansion goals under its Alnylam 2030 strategy.

Jakob Uszkoreit, Inceptive co-founder and CEO, said the collaboration represents a shift from traditional trial-and-error drug design. "Inceptive was built on a different premise: that life follows rules of such complexity that only AI can learn them," he stated.

Alnylam has developed six approved RNA interference drugs and operates in more than 70 countries. Inceptive, founded in 2021 and backed by investors including a16z and NVIDIA, builds AI foundation models for biological medicine design and is headquartered in Palo Alto with offices in Berlin and Zurich.