Alnylam Pharmaceuticals appoints Mike Bonney to its Board of Directors

– USA, MA – Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq:ALNY), a leading RNAi therapeutics company, announced today the election of Michael W. Bonney to its Board of Directors. Mr. Bonney has served as Chief Executive Officer of Cubist Pharmaceuticals and as a member of its Board of Directors since June 2003. His experience prior to that includes leadership positions in successful biotech and pharmaceutical companies including Biogen Idecand Zeneca Pharmaceuticals (now AstraZeneca).

“Mike is a recognized leader in the development and growth of successful, commercial-stage biopharmaceutical companies. This expertise will be very valuable to our Board, as we continue to build Alnylam as a leading biotechnology company, ultimately commercializing products from our pipeline of RNAi therapeutics,” said John Maraganore, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Alnylam. “Given our robust clinical progress and our planned transition to a commercial company in the coming years, Mike’s addition to our Board comes at an opportune time as we advance RNAi therapeutics to patients.”

“I am excited to join the Board of Alnylam, a highly innovative biotechnology company, and a pioneer in advancing an entirely new class of high-impact medicines with RNAi therapeutics. The progress Alnylam has made in its clinical efforts has yielded very encouraging results,” said Mike Bonney. “I look forward to working with the management team and Board to contribute to the company’s value creation strategy and execution.”

Michael W. Bonney has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Cubist Pharmaceuticals and as a member of its Board of Directors since June 2003. He is retiring from his CEO position and transitioning to non-executive Chair of the Board effective December 31, 2014. From January 2002 to June 2003, he served as Cubist’s President and Chief Operating Officer. From 1995 to 2001, Mike held various positions of increasing responsibility at Biogen, including Vice President, Sales and Marketing from 1999 to 2001. While at Biogen, he built the commercial infrastructure for the launch of Avonex. Prior to that, Mike held various positions of increasing responsibility in sales, marketing and strategic planning at Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, ending his 11-year career there serving as National Business Director. Cubist won a Catalyst Award in 2013 for its outstanding record of diversity on its board, senior leadership team and staff, corporate contributions of volunteers, and funding to support STEM outreach initiatives advancing girls and women. Mike received the MASSBio Innovative Leadership Award in 2010. Mike earned a B.A. in Economics from Bates College where he now serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees. He is a Director of NPS Pharmaceuticals, a PhrMA Board Member (and former Board Member of BIO’s Health Section Governing Body), and a Trustee of the TEKLA funds, which include the H&Q Healthcare Investors and H&Q Life Sciences Investors funds.

About RNAi

RNAi (RNA interference) is a revolution in biology, representing a breakthrough in understanding how genes are turned on and off in cells, and a completely new approach to drug discovery and development. Its discovery has been heralded as “a major scientific breakthrough that happens once every decade or so,” and represents one of the most promising and rapidly advancing frontiers in biology and drug discovery today which was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. RNAi is a natural process of gene silencing that occurs in organisms ranging from plants to mammals. By harnessing the natural biological process of RNAi occurring in our cells, the creation of a major new class of medicines, known as RNAi therapeutics, is on the horizon. Small interfering RNA (siRNA), the molecules that mediate RNAi and comprise Alnylam’s RNAi therapeutic platform, target the cause of diseases by potently silencing specific mRNAs, thereby preventing disease-causing proteins from being made. RNAi therapeutics have the potential to treat disease and help patients in a fundamentally new way.

About Alnylam Pharmaceuticals

Alnylam is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics based on RNA interference, or RNAi. The company is leading the translation of RNAi as a new class of innovative medicines. Founded in 2002, Alnylam maintains headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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