And Now, A Word from the DOTY Winners

"You really like who?"

We promise this is the last DOTY post for at least eleven months but no awards ceremony would be complete without a word from the winners. We now turn the mic over to Jason Rhodes, vice president of business development at Alnylam.

Well, we barely know where to begin, but before the music starts and the hook appears from the edge of the stage…

There are many daunting steps along the path of building a successful innovation-based biopharmaceutical company – harnessing revolutionary science, hiring great people, accessing needed IP, raising capital, filing INDs, achieving human PoC in clinical trials and then successful Phase III results, filing NDAs and obtaining FDA approval, achieving successful product launches, growing earnings, and… you guessed it, winning the DOTY award!

We are truly grateful to have received it (actually amazed given the outstanding competition!) and for the recognition (cough, cough) it represents for Alnylam’s partnering strategy. Our business development team would like to take all (repeat, all!) the credit, but we must admit that the real credit goes to our scientists’ efforts, the strength of our IP, and the broad potential of our technology. Of course, we’d also like to thank small molecules and antibodies for giving us undruggable targets and the FDA and payors for making drug incrementalism a thing of the past. So, as you can see, our BD team played the key role.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without Takeda and their commitment to innovation, their deep understanding of RNAi technology and IP, and the confidence that they have in Alnylam. We are at the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership with them and look forward to our continued mutual success. We’ve already enjoyed many visits with our colleagues and friends in Japan and have become big fans of Asahi Super Dry.

We’d also like to non-exclusively thank our parents, spouses, the local Boston internet cafes and Apple stores for access to their computers, the entire 8th grade class at Brown middle school, the local citizens from the Ibaraki Prefecture, the many others who voted for Alnylam among many strong candidates, and the good readership and sage editorial board of the In Vivo blog for their unwavering support.

We have big plans for 2009 (just like Philly these days, we’re insatiable and aiming for a “two-fer” with “DOTY-2009”) and wish everyone a very very successful year!