And he changed the name of the company to Sirna Therapeutics to reflect its new mission.
Sirna has laid claim to a huge patent estate in the RNAi field.
But this much is clear: It was impossible for Sirna executives to turn down such a big premium to its market value.
And with GlaxoSmithKline, Sirna inked a deal to develop drugs for the treatment of respiratory diseases such as asthma and allergic rhinitis.
As of last week, Sirna had been in discussions with a number of large pharmaceutical firms about a collaboration, says a spokesman.
Sirna already has a collaboration with Allergan for its lead compound, a drug to treat age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness.
And two companies, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Sirna Therapeutics, are trying to develop RNAi as a drug against diseases like macular degeneration, cystic fibrosis and pandemic flu.
And with GlaxoSmithKline (nyse: GSK - news - people ), Sirna inked a deal to develop drugs for the treatment of respiratory diseases such as asthma and allergic rhinitis.
Sirna already has a collaboration with Allergan (nyse: AGN - news - people ) for its lead compound, a drug to treat age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness.
Sirna has been in the news of late because Andrew Fire and Craig Mello, the discoverers of the technology upon which Sirna's drugs are based--RNA interference, or RNAi-- won a Nobel Prize for medicine last month.
Thus far, it has 50 issued patents and at least 250 filed patents, many of them gene and viral targets that may be the focus of RNAi drugs developed by Sirna itself or other companies in the future.
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