The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has reportedly awarded an Innovation Passport to Alnylam’s zilebesiran, an investigational treatment for hypertension. The passport is the entry point to the Innovative Licensing and Access Pathway (ILAP) which aims to accelerate the time to market, facilitating patient access to medicines.
Pharmaphorum notes that zilebesiran is “one of a new breed of gene-silencing drugs that are intended to treat common, chronic diseases with infrequent dosing to boost compliance with treatment”. If approved, the drug could be a treatment option for some 15 million people in the UK with high blood pressure, around half of which are sub optimally treated.
According to pharmatimes, Simon Fox, vice president and programme leader at Alnylam commented, “The Innovation Passport designation underscores the promise of our RNAi therapeutic for the treatment of hypertension, and we are hopeful that by continuing to evaluate the potential of zilebesiran to deliver tonic blood pressure control over 24 hours with an infrequent dosing regimen, we may ultimately be able to fill a critical unmet need in this disease”.
Sources:
- www.pharmatimes.com, “Innovation Passport awarded Alnylam and its hypertension therapy”, 8th June 2022
- www.pharmaphorum.com, “MHRA gives Alnylam ‘innovation passport’ for hypertension drug zilebesiran”, 8th June 2022