Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc Stock price
Compare with Peer Group
📊 Peer Group
📈 What is it?
The peer group consists of the companies with the most similar business model. They serve as a benchmark for putting a stock into context.
🧮 How is it selected?
Based on similarity of business model, meaning companies from the same industry with comparable products and a similar customer base. That's the only way to compare apples to apples.
🏛️ Why does it matter?
Whether a stock is cheap or expensive is best judged by comparison. A P/E of 18 or an EV/FCF of 20 can look cheap or expensive depending on the yardstick. The peer group gives you the most accurate one: companies with a similar business model that operate under the same conditions.
🎯 What does it mean for investors?
When a metric sits below the peer average, the stock is valued more cheaply relative to its competitors, and above the average more expensively. A discount to the peer group can be an opportunity, but it can also have a reason (for example lower growth). The comparison is a starting point, not a verdict.
AI Insights on Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc
Insights
Invest better with AI
StocksGuide Unlimited – full access to AI analyses
👉 More detailed insights
👉 Exclusive perspectives on opportunities & risks
👉 Clear answers to your questions
Invest better with AI
StocksGuide Unlimited – full access to AI analyses
👉 More detailed insights
👉 Exclusive perspectives on opportunities & risks
👉 Clear answers to your questions
Invest better with AI
StocksGuide Unlimited – full access to AI analyses
👉 More detailed insights
👉 Exclusive perspectives on opportunities & risks
👉 Clear answers to your questions
Invest better with AI
StocksGuide Unlimited – full access to AI analyses
👉 More detailed insights
👉 Exclusive perspectives on opportunities & risks
👉 Clear answers to your questions
Create a Free Account to create an Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc alert.
Set up alerts on Stock Price, Dividend Yield, Valuation (e.g. P/E or EV/Sales) or Strategy Scores and sit back and relax.
StocksGuide Free
Key metrics
📘 Market Capitalization
📈 What is it?
Market capitalization shows how much a company is currently worth on the stock market.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It helps classify companies by size (Large, Mid, Small Cap) and indicates their market presence and relative stability.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Large-cap companies tend to be more stable, often pay dividends, but may grow more slowly.
- Smaller firms may offer higher growth potential but come with more volatility.
- Market capitalization is a useful indicator of company size — but not a measure of whether a stock is undervalued or overvalued.
📘 Enterprise Value (EV)
📈 What is it?
Enterprise Value represents the total cost to acquire a company — including its debt and excluding its cash reserves.
🧮 How is it calculated?
(= Market Cap + Net Debt)
🏛️ Why is it important?
EV gives a more complete picture of a company's value than market cap alone and is used in key valuation ratios like EV/FCF or EV/Sales.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Enterprise Value shows the true cost of buying a company, including all financial obligations.
- It is more accurate than just looking at market cap, especially when comparing companies with different levels of debt or cash.
- Professional investors prefer EV-based multiples because they better reflect the company’s full financial footprint.
📘 Net Debt
📈 What is it?
Net Debt shows how much debt remains after subtracting a company’s available cash reserves.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It indicates how dependent a company is on borrowed money and how easily it can service its debt in the short term.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Low or negative net debt signals financial strength and flexibility.
- Companies with strong cash positions are better positioned in crises.
- High net debt increases financial risk — especially in environments with rising interest rates or economic downturns.
📘 Cash
📈 What is it?
Cash represents all liquid assets a company can access immediately — including cash, bank deposits, and short-term investments.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It reflects a company’s financial flexibility and resilience — enabling investments, buybacks, or buffer in downturns.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A strong cash position means greater room for maneuver and crisis resistance.
- Cash-rich companies can invest, pay down debt, or repurchase shares.
- But excess idle cash might indicate a lack of growth opportunities.
📘 Shares Outstanding
📈 What is it?
Shares outstanding represent the total number of a company’s shares currently held by investors — excluding treasury stock.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It’s the basis for key metrics like Earnings Per Share (EPS), Market Capitalization, or the Price/Earnings ratio (P/E).
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Fewer shares in circulation typically increase earnings per share — making each share more valuable.
- Share buybacks reduce the number of shares and boost per-share metrics.
- Issuing new shares does the opposite — diluting shareholder value and lowering per-share figures.
📘 Price-to-Earnings Ratio (P/E)
📈 What is it?
The P/E ratio shows how many times a company's earnings per share are reflected in its current share price — in other words, how "expensive" the stock appears relative to its profits.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
The P/E ratio is one of the most widely used valuation metrics. It helps investors assess whether a stock appears cheap or expensive compared to its earnings power.
🧮 Calculation
📊 P/E (TTM) = Based on earnings from the last 12 months (Trailing Twelve Months):🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low P/E may indicate undervaluation — or signal underlying issues.
- A high P/E may reflect strong growth expectations — or an overvalued stock.
📘 Price-to-Sales Ratio (P/S)
📈 What is it?
The P/S ratio shows how much investors are paying for $1 of the company’s revenue – regardless of profitability.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
P/S is especially useful for evaluating growth companies or businesses not yet profitable. It reflects how the market values the company’s sales.
🧮 Calculation
Market Cap = $32.85b | Revenue (TTM) = $4.80b
Market Cap = $32.85b | Estimated Revenue = $5.60b
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low P/S may indicate undervaluation — or low profitability.
- A high P/S can reflect strong growth expectations — or excessive optimism.
- Especially helpful when evaluating companies where profits are low, volatile, or negative.
📘 Enterprise Value to Sales (EV/Sales)
📈 What is it?
EV/Sales shows how much investors are paying for $1 of revenue — considering not just equity, but also debt and cash. It’s the capital structure–adjusted version of the P/S ratio.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It’s ideal for comparing companies with different levels of debt. It reflects a company's true cost relative to its revenue.
🧮 Calculation
Enterprise Value = $32.27b | Revenue (TTM) = $4.80b
Enterprise Value = $32.27b | Forward Revenue = $5.60b
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- EV/Sales allows for capital structure–neutral company comparisons.
- A lower ratio may indicate undervaluation; a higher one may signal strong growth expectations or overvaluation.
- Especially helpful when evaluating high-growth companies with low or negative earnings.
📘 Enterprise Value to Free Cash Flow (EV/FCF)
📈 What is it?
EV/FCF shows how many years it would take for a company to "pay back" its enterprise value using its free cash flow.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It focuses on real cash generation, ignoring accounting noise — ideal for assessing profitability and value based on liquidity, not earnings.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low EV/FCF may signal undervaluation and strong cash generation.
- A high EV/FCF might reflect weak recent cash flow or aggressive growth expectations.
- Best suited for stable, mature businesses with predictable free cash flows.
📘 Price-to-Book Ratio (P/B)
📈 What is it?
The P/B ratio compares a company’s market value to its book value — showing how much investors are paying for each dollar of net assets.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
P/B is commonly used for asset-heavy industries like banks or industrials. It helps assess whether a stock is trading above or below its net asset value.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A P/B below 1 may signal undervaluation — or weak profitability.
- A P/B above 1 implies the market expects future value creation (e.g., brand, IP, growth).
- Best used for companies with tangible assets and strong balance sheets.
📘 Equity Ratio
📈 What is it?
The equity ratio indicates what portion of a company’s total assets is financed by shareholders’ equity – in other words, how much it relies on its own capital.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
A high equity ratio reflects financial strength and stability, especially during downturns. It’s a key indicator of a company’s solvency and long-term risk profile.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Companies with high equity ratios are generally more resilient and less dependent on external debt.
- Low equity ratios can signal higher risk or aggressive financial strategies.
- Important: Always assess the equity ratio in combination with the return on equity (ROE). This shows not just how stable the company is – but also how efficiently it uses shareholder capital.
📘 Return on Equity (ROE)
📈 What is it?
Return on equity (ROE) shows how efficiently a company uses its shareholders’ equity to generate profit. In other words: how much net income is earned per dollar of equity.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
ROE is a core profitability metric. It helps investors understand whether a company delivers attractive returns on the capital provided by its shareholders.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high ROE indicates that the company is using its capital efficiently and profitably.
- It’s especially meaningful for capital-intensive businesses or firms with high equity bases.
- Important: A very high ROE can also result from high debt levels – always interpret it alongside the equity ratio to assess financial health.
📘 Return on Capital Employed (ROCE)
📈 What is it?
ROCE measures how efficiently a company generates profits from its total capital – including both equity and interest-bearing debt.
🧮 How is it calculated?
It evaluates the return on all capital employed, regardless of how it’s financed.
🏛️ Why is it important?
ROCE is ideal for comparing companies with different financing structures. It shows how well management uses capital to create value for both shareholders and creditors.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high ROCE means the company uses its capital efficiently – regardless of whether it's funded by debt or equity.
- The higher the ROCE compared to peers, the more value the company creates with its invested capital.
- Especially relevant for capital-intensive sectors like industrials, energy, or infrastructure.
📘 Return on Invested Capital (ROIC)
📈 What is it?
ROIC measures how efficiently a company generates returns from the capital invested in its core operations – regardless of whether the capital comes from equity or debt.
🧮 How is it calculated?
- NOPAT = Net Operating Profit After Taxes
- Invested Capital = Operating assets minus non-interest-bearing liabilities
🏛️ Why is it important?
ROIC is one of the most accurate indicators of capital efficiency. Unlike return on equity, it is not distorted by leverage and shows how much value is created for all capital providers.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high ROIC shows how effectively a company uses the capital that is truly invested in its core operations.
- Unlike ROCE, ROIC focuses only on the capital that is actively used to run the business – and that requires a return (i.e. interest-bearing).
- Especially useful when comparing companies with large amounts of excess cash or non-interest-bearing liabilities – giving a more realistic picture of capital efficiency.
📘 Leverage Ratio (Debt-to-Equity)
📈 What is it?
The leverage ratio indicates how much a company relies on interest-bearing debt (such as loans and bonds) relative to its shareholders’ equity.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
This ratio helps assess a company’s financial structure and risk profile. High leverage can enhance returns – but also increases exposure to interest rate changes and financial stress.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low leverage ratio signals financial strength and independence.
- A higher ratio can improve returns in good times but increases risk during downturns or rising interest rate periods.
- 👉 Always interpret in the context of industry, capital intensity, and interest rate environment.
📘 Revenue
📈 What is it?
Revenue shows how much a company earns in total from selling its products and services – the gross income before any costs are deducted.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Revenue is one of the key figures to assess a company’s size, market position, and growth potential.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Growing revenue indicates rising demand and can be an early signal of future earnings growth.
- Comparing actual and expected revenue reveals trends in the market environment and analyst sentiment.
- Note: Strong revenue alone isn’t enough – margins and profitability matter just as much.
📘 EBITDA
📈 What is it?
EBITDA stands for “Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization.” It reflects a company’s operating profit before the effects of financing, taxes, and accounting depreciation.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
EBITDA is widely used to evaluate a company’s operating performance – especially across capital-intensive sectors or international comparisons.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high or growing EBITDA indicates strong operational profitability – independent of taxes, interest, or accounting methods.
- It’s especially useful for comparing companies across sectors or geographies.
- Important: EBITDA is not a net income figure – it excludes key costs like depreciation and interest.
📘 EBIT
📈 What is it?
EBIT stands for “Earnings Before Interest and Taxes.” It reflects a company’s operating profit after depreciation, but before interest and tax expenses.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
EBIT is a core profitability metric that shows how well the company performs in its main business operations – independent of capital structure and tax environment.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high EBIT indicates strong profitability from the company’s core business – before financial and tax effects.
- It allows better comparison between companies with different debt levels or tax structures.
- Compared to EBITDA, EBIT already accounts for depreciation and reflects capital intensity more clearly.
📘 Net Income
📈 What is it?
Net income is the company’s total profit – the amount left after all expenses, taxes, interest, and depreciation have been deducted.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Net income is the most comprehensive measure of a company’s profitability – showing how much actual profit remains after all business and financing costs.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Growing net income indicates that the company is managing all of its costs efficiently.
- It directly influences valuation metrics like P/E ratio and the company’s dividend capacity.
- Over time, net income trends reveal how resilient and profitable the business model really is.
📘 Free Cash Flow (FCF)
📈 What is it?
Free Cash Flow shows how much actual cash remains after a company covers its operating expenses and capital expenditures.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
FCF reflects a company’s real financial strength – regardless of accounting profits. It shows how much flexibility a company has for dividends, share buybacks, or debt reduction.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- High free cash flow means the company generates real, usable cash – independent of reported net income.
- It’s often the most reliable base for sustainable dividends and buybacks.
- Declining FCF can be an early warning sign – even when profits appear stable.
📘 Revenue Growth
📈 What is it?
Revenue growth shows how much a company’s sales have changed compared to the previous year – both on a trailing basis (TTM) and based on forward projections.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected revenue ÷ Revenue in prior year − 1) × 100
Forward growth is based on analyst estimates for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Rising revenue signals growing demand, business expansion, and market share gains – especially important for growth-oriented companies.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Growth is the engine of long-term value creation – especially in tech and growth sectors.
- What matters is not just current growth, but its sustainability.
- Forward projections reflect whether analysts expect continued momentum – or a slowdown.
📘 EBITDA Growth
📈 What is it?
EBITDA growth shows how much a company’s operating profit (before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) has increased or decreased compared to the previous year.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected EBITDA ÷ EBITDA from prior year − 1) × 100
The forward estimate is based on analyst projections for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Growing EBITDA indicates improving operational profitability – regardless of financing or accounting effects.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Strong EBITDA growth signals operational efficiency and scalability – especially during growth phases.
- EBITDA growth can be an early indicator of margin and earnings expansion – but should be assessed alongside revenue and EBIT.
📘 EBIT Growth
📈 What is it?
EBIT growth shows how much a company’s operating profit (after depreciation, but before interest and taxes) has increased compared to the previous year.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected EBIT ÷ EBIT from prior year − 1) × 100
The forward estimate is based on analyst projections for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
EBIT growth is a direct indicator of a company’s business performance – taking into account capital intensity through depreciation.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Rising EBIT signals improving operating profitability – even after accounting for depreciation.
- It’s especially important for evaluating companies with significant capital expenditures.
- Combined with revenue and EBITDA growth, EBIT growth provides a well-rounded view of operational progress.
📘 Net Income Growth
📈 What is it?
Net income growth shows how much a company’s bottom-line profit has increased or decreased compared to the previous year – both on a trailing basis (TTM) and based on analyst projections.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected net income ÷ Net income from prior year − 1) × 100
The forward estimate reflects analysts’ expectations for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Net income is the ultimate measure of profitability. Growing net income signals stronger efficiency, cost control, and sustainable earnings power.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Stronger net income boosts valuation, dividend potential, and investor confidence.
- If profits stall while revenue grows, it may signal margin pressure.
📘 Free Cash Flow Growth
📈 What is it?
Free cash flow (FCF) growth shows how a company’s available cash – after covering operating expenses and capital expenditures – has changed compared to the previous year.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Free cash flow reflects real financial strength. Growing FCF indicates more flexibility for dividends, share buybacks, and reinvestment.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Declining FCF may point to rising investments, increasing costs, or weaker operating performance.
- Especially for dividend investors, FCF growth is critical – since dividends are paid from actual available cash.
- A negative trend isn't always bad, but it deserves closer attention.
📘 Gross Margin
📈 What is it?
Gross margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains after deducting the direct costs of goods sold (like materials and production). It represents the company’s “raw profit” before fixed costs, taxes, and interest.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Or simply: Gross Margin = Gross Profit ÷ Revenue × 100
🏛️ Why is it important?
Gross margin indicates how efficiently a company can produce or procure what it sells. It is a key measure of product-level profitability and pricing power.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high gross margin suggests strong pricing power and efficient production.
- Falling margins may signal rising input costs or competitive pressure.
- Compared to peers, gross margin offers insights into the quality of a business model.
📘 EBITDA Margin
📈 What is it?
The EBITDA margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains as operating profit before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.It reflects operating efficiency without being distorted by financing or accounting factors.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
The EBITDA margin reveals how much operating income a company generates per dollar of revenue – independent of capital structure and tax effects.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high EBITDA margin reflects strong core profitability – before accounting distortions.
- It allows for effective comparisons across companies and sectors.
- A stable or growing margin signals efficient cost control and business scalability.
📘 EBIT Margin
📈 What is it?
The EBIT margin shows what percentage of revenue remains as operating profit after depreciation but before interest and taxes.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
The EBIT margin reflects a company’s core profitability while accounting for capital intensity (e.g. machinery, infrastructure). It’s especially useful for comparing businesses with different levels of depreciation.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high EBIT margin shows that the company remains efficient even after factoring in depreciation.
- It’s especially relevant for capital-intensive industries.
- Stable or rising EBIT margins over time are a strong indicator of pricing power and business quality.
📘 Net margin
📈 What is it?
Net margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains as bottom-line profit after deducting all costs, interest, taxes, and depreciation.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Net margin reflects a company’s overall efficiency – across operations, financing, and taxation. It shows how much actual profit is generated from each dollar of revenue.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high net margin means the company is not only strong operationally but also manages financing and taxes efficiently.
- Peer comparisons reveal business quality and competitiveness.
- Declining margins despite revenue growth can be a red flag for rising costs or inefficiencies.
📘 Free cash flow margin
📈 What is it?
The free cash flow (FCF) margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains as actual free cash after covering all operating expenses and capital expenditures.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
This margin reflects the true liquidity generated by the business – independent of accounting rules or depreciation. It’s especially relevant for dividends, buybacks, and reinvestment decisions.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high FCF margin means a company consistently generates strong cash flow.
- It’s a positive signal for financial stability and shareholder returns.
- The long-term trend is key – a declining margin may indicate rising investments or weakening operating efficiency.
📘 Earnings per share (EPS)
📈 What is it?
Earnings per Share (EPS) shows how much profit is attributable to a single share – and is one of the most important metrics for evaluating a company's performance.
🧮 How is it calculated?
The diluted share count reflects potential new shares that could be issued through options, convertible bonds, or other rights.
🏛️ Why is it important?
EPS is the basis for many key valuation metrics like P/E ratio, PEG ratio, or payout ratio. It enables comparisons of profitability across companies, regardless of their size.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- EPS captures per-share profitability and is especially useful for comparisons over time or with analyst estimates.
- Rising EPS may signal consistent growth or share buybacks.
- Important: Always use diluted EPS for more realistic valuations – especially in companies with stock-based compensation.
📘 Free cash flow per share (FCF per share)
📈 What is it?
Free Cash Flow per Share shows how much free cash flow a company generates per outstanding share – after investments, but before dividends or debt repayments.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Free cash flow is calculated as operating cash flow minus capital expenditures (CapEx).
🏛️ Why is it important?
FCF per Share reveals how much real cash is available per share – useful for dividends, buybacks, or reducing debt. Unlike net income, free cash flow is harder to manipulate and often seen as a more reliable metric.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- High FCF per share signals strong financial flexibility.
- It shows how much capital the company can effectively reinvest or return to shareholders.
- Particularly relevant for dividend payers and capital-efficient businesses.
📘 Short interest
📈 What is it?
Short interest indicates how many shares of a company are currently sold short – that is, borrowed and sold by investors who expect the price to decline.
🧮 How is it calculated?
It reflects the percentage of a company’s shares that are being shorted relative to the total shares available.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Short interest serves as a sentiment indicator: A high value may signal skepticism or bearish expectations – but also increases the potential for a short squeeze if prices rise unexpectedly.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Low short interest usually indicates market confidence in the company.
- High short interest can be a warning sign – or an opportunity if sentiment shifts.
- Especially relevant in volatile markets or ahead of key earnings releases.
📘 Employees
📈 What is it?
The employee count shows how many people a company employs worldwide – offering insights into its size, structure, and business model.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It helps assess operational scale, labor intensity, and cost structure. Combined with revenue and profit, it enables key metrics like revenue per employee or productivity.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high headcount can signal operational complexity – but also significant growth capacity.
- Revenue per employee is a key indicator of efficiency.
- Especially useful for comparing tech, industrial, or service-heavy companies.
📘 Turnover per employee
📈 What is it?
Revenue per employee indicates how much revenue a company generates on average per employee – a key measure of efficiency and productivity.
🧮 How is it calculated?
The employee count is typically taken from the most recent annual report.
🏛️ Why is it important?
This metric helps compare business models – especially between labor-intensive and technology-driven companies. A high value suggests automation, operational efficiency, or strong value creation per head.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high revenue per employee indicates a scalable and margin-strong business model.
- A low figure may reflect labor-intensive operations or lower value-add.
- Especially helpful when comparing tech companies to industrial or service sectors.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc Stock Analysis
Analyst Opinions
38 Analysts have issued a Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc forecast:
Analyst Opinions
38 Analysts have issued a Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc forecast:
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc Events
Past Events
|
SEP
17
Special Call - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
one day ago
|
|
SEP
14
Morgan Stanley 24th Annual Global Healthcare Conference
4 days ago
|
|
SEP
8
Wells Fargo 21st Annual Healthcare Conference
10 days ago
|
|
JUL
30
Q2 2026 Earnings Call
about 2 months ago
|
|
JUN
25
Special Call - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
3 months ago
|
|
JUN
9
Goldman Sachs 47th Annual Global Healthcare Conference 2026
3 months ago
|
|
MAY
13
Bank of America Global Healthcare Conference 2026
4 months ago
|
|
APR
30
Q1 2026 Earnings Call
5 months ago
|
|
MAR
24
Special Call - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
6 months ago
|
|
MAR
2
TD Cowen 46th Annual Health Care Conference
7 months ago
|
|
FEB
12
Q4 2025 Earnings Call
7 months ago
|
|
JAN
12
44th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference
8 months ago
|
|
NOV
19
Jefferies London Healthcare Conference 2025
10 months ago
|
|
NOV
10
UBS Global Healthcare Conference 2025
10 months ago
|
|
OCT
30
Q3 2025 Earnings Call
11 months ago
|
|
SEP
23
Bernstein Insights: Healthcare Leaders and Disruptors - 2nd Annual Healthcare Forum
12 months ago
|
|
SEP
10
Morgan Stanley 23rd Annual Global Healthcare Conference
about one year ago
|
|
SEP
3
Citi's Biopharma Back to School Conference
about one year ago
|
|
AUG
30
Special Call - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
about one year ago
|
StocksGuide Free
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Special Call - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
1. Management Discussion
Good morning, everyone. I'm Kelly Cronin, Senior Manager of Investor Relations at Alnylam, and I'm pleased to welcome you to the second event of Alnylam's 10th RNAi Roundtable series. Through this series, we aim to bring greater visibility to select near- and midterm pipeline programs that we believe will define the next wave of transformative medicines emerging from our RNAi platform here at Alnylam.
Today's event is focused on zilebesiran, our investigational RNAi therapeutic for patients with hypertension and high cardiovascular risk or established cardiovascular disease, which we are advancing together with our partners at Roche.
As a reminder, today's discussion will include forward-looking statements. We encourage you to review our most recent SEC filings for a more complete discussion of our risk factors. During today's event, you'll hear first from Chief Research and Development Officer, Pushkal Garg, who will set the stage with an overview of Alnylam's organic product engine and the unique potential of RNAi therapeutics to transform cardiovascular care.
Dr. Akshay Desai, of Harvard Medical School and Mass General Brigham, will then discuss the persistent burden of hypertension beyond the office setting followed by Ishir Bhan, who will review clinical evidence supporting the potential for continuous control with zilebesiran.
Simon Fox will then close out our prepared remarks with an overview of the integrated execution underway to realize zilebesiran's full potential. Following the prepared remarks, we will open the discussion for a question-and-answer session with our speakers joined by Victoria Silva, who leads zilebesiran commercial strategy at Alnylam. The Q&A will be moderated by Pushkal and questions may be submitted at any time through the ask a question field within the webcast platform.
With that, I'll turn it over to Pushkal. Pushkal?
Thanks, Kelly, and welcome, everyone, to today's RNAi Roundtable focused on zilebesiran, which we believe has the potential to transform the treatment of hypertension by providing continuous control of blood pressure. As many of you know, Alnylam has spent more than 2 decades pioneering an entirely new class of medicines based on RNA interference. What makes RNAi so remarkable is the combination of attributes you see here.
Like a biologic scalpel, we can silence virtually any gene in the genome and intervene upstream of most traditional medicines. It's a catalytic mechanism, enabling highly potent medicines at low doses while remaining highly specific and reversible. And we can engineer long durations of effect that support very infrequent administration.
Taken together, these attributes create an extraordinarily powerful therapeutic profile and we've already demonstrated what this technology can deliver, translating the science into a growing portfolio of medicines for patients. We've harnessed this natural phenomenon into a unique and sustainable innovation engine which we believe will fuel sustained long-term growth.
We continue to invest in the power of human genetics with access to data for more than 2 million lives, helping us identify and validate compelling new targets. Advance RNAi delivery to major tissues throughout the body and optimize our siRNA designs to enable increasingly potent, specific and durable molecules across a wide range of clinical applications. We paired this innovation engine with a disciplined strategy for selecting the most compelling opportunities to advance to the clinic.
Our therapeutic area agnostic approach focused on diseases with high morbidity and mortality where we can pursue highly genetically validated targets with a strong biologic rationale. This integrated approach has enabled us to generate high-quality drug candidates and achieve historical clinical success rates well above industry benchmarks building a high-value portfolio of programs targeting areas of tremendous unmet need.
And you can see the results of that strategy here in our industry-leading pipeline of RNAi therapeutics. With more than 25 programs spanning rare, specialty and prevalent indications across multiple therapeutic areas, we believe this pipeline underscores the depth of opportunity ahead for Alnylam and most importantly, our potential to deliver even more transformative medicines to patients.
We're entering a period of significant clinical momentum with three pivotal studies underway and four important data readouts expected this year. That momentum will build meaningfully through 2028 with a growing number of pivotal studies, at least five key data readouts each year and the potential launch of vutrisiran in hereditary ATTR polyneuropathy assuming positive Phase III data and regulatory approval.
Cardiovascular disease is one area where the power of RNAi offers the potential to make a major impact on the leading cause of death around the world. With our RNAi-based platform, we built a diverse portfolio of therapies designed to address major drivers of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypercholesterolemia and hypertension. Zilebesiran is a particularly compelling example of the unique potential of RNAi in cardiovascular disease.
Hypertension remains one of the largest and most consequential drivers of cardiovascular risk and control remains inadequate for far too many patients. Together with our partners at Roche, we're exploring whether durable suppression of angiotensinogen can deliver more consistent blood pressure control and ultimately translate into a profound impact on cardiovascular outcomes. The urgency of that work becomes clear when we look at the projected burden of cardiovascular disease.
Annual death due to cardiovascular disease around the world are projected to rise over 70% from 20.5 million in 2025 to 35.6 million by 2050. And notably, high systolic blood pressure remains the leading risk factor with the CV deaths attributable to hypertension projected to increase from 11 million to nearly 19 million during that period. Despite this enormous and growing burden, hypertension has not seen the same degree of therapeutic innovation as areas such as lipids and obesity.
Our aspiration is to bend this curve by investigating whether continuous durable blood pressure control with zilebesiran can reduce cardiovascular risk. To put the magnitude of this unmet need into clinical context and dive deeper into why we've struggled to effectively manage hypertension in the past, I'll now turn it over to Dr. Akshay Desai.
Thanks very much, Pushkal. In the next 10 minutes, my job is to underscore for you the ongoing threat of hypertension as a global health priority. The burden of hypertension globally has steadily risen since 1990 in the United States and elsewhere from an estimate of about 440 million prevalent cases in 1990 to more than 875 million cases by 2015 and nearly a billion cases prevalent in modern era. And that is defined at a threshold of a blood pressure more than 140 millimeters of mercury, and we can anticipate that the prevalence would be estimated at the newer reduced thresholds that are recommended by current guidelines.
This steady rise in the prevalence of hypertension is related to secular trends and risk factors for the development of hypertension, including normal aging, but also risk factors, including obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes that drive the hypertension epidemic. Hypertension remains the leading risk factor for cardiovascular disease and associated disability and mortality worldwide and the leading preventable approach to prevention of cardiovascular disease that we have 10% of the global health care expenditure is estimated to be accounted for by hypertension, and this, therefore, represents an important target for ongoing attention.
We know that hypertension contributes to changes in the vasculature, the heart and in the kidney, that predisposed the development of a range of cardiovascular diseases, including ischemic heart disease, stroke, chronic kidney disease and then a range of other vascular disorders, including heart failure. As this slide shows the cumulative burden of disability-adjusted life years associated with hypertension is quite substantial. At every blood pressure, the highest burden of disease is contributed by ischemic heart disease with subsequent contributions by stroke, chronic kidney disease and other disorders, including heart failure.
About 70% of the disability associated with hypertension and hypertension-related mortality is related to blood pressures that are measured more than 140 millimeters of mercury, but you can see that even -- that 1/3 of the disability-adjusted life years are associated with blood pressures between 110 and 140 millimeters of mercury, which underscores the need for even more aggressive control of blood pressure to prevent disability and death in clinical practice. It's estimated that nearly $100 billion in global savings could be secured for more aggressive control of blood pressure in clinical practice, and this is really the opportunity for more effective hypertension therapies.
It's well established that blood pressure reduction is an effective way of reducing cardiovascular risk, and this data from a meta-analysis of nearly 123 studies comprising more than 600,000 patients highlights that with each 10-millimeter reduction in systolic blood pressure, there's about a 20% reduction in major cardiovascular events, a 17% reduction in coronary heart disease, a 27% reduction in stroke and another 30% reduction in heart failure.
These data underscore that with incremental blood pressure reductions, we can expect an incremental reduction in return on cardiovascular risk reduction. That said, we have a lot of effective medical therapies for hypertension, but these are heavily underutilized in clinical practice.
When we look at the total burden of hypertension, only 40% of patients are identified as hypertensive and treated in clinical practice. And among those who are treated, only 1 in 5 is actually treated to guideline recommended targets. And this implies that nearly 80% of treated hypertensive patients are still at risk for cardiovascular disease and disability. And there's substantial residual risk that is unattended in the current paradigm we need a different approach to more aggressive recognition of blood pressure management, and we need more effective therapies for blood pressure control and practice.
This problem over time has become even more important because it's recognized now based on data from the SPRINT trial that even more aggressive blood pressure targets are important to prevent cardiovascular disease and disability in clinical practice. The SPRINT trial randomized nearly 9,000 patients with uncontrolled hypertension to treatment with an intensive blood pressure target of less than 120 millimeters of mercury versus a standard blood pressure target of less than 140 millimeters of mercury, the prevailing recommendation at the time.
And you can see that the trial was terminated early for evidence of overwhelming benefit in the intensive therapy arm at median follow-up of 3.3 years based on a 25% reduction in the composite outcome of myocardial infarction, acute coronary syndrome, stroke, heart failure or cardiovascular death.
This effect was also seen in key components of the primary outcome, including overall mortality, which was reduced 27% with the more intensive therapy arm. And these data have now driven a change in practice guidelines. The modern ACC/AHA guidelines for blood pressure are outlined on this slide which highlights that our targets have now been revised to a treatment -- to recommend a treatment goal of less than 130 over 80 millimeters of mercury for all adults defining blood pressure more than 130-millimeter mercury as Stage 1 hypertension and more than 140 millimeters of mercury, our previous therapeutic target as Stage 2 hypertension.
So this new guideline recalibrates our estimates of global prevalence of disease and really reassign many patients we previously thought were well controlled with hypertension to an uncontrolled category. After a long lull in the drug development for hypertension, we've now seen an explosion of new therapeutic trials in hypertension and proliferation of new agents for effective management of hypertension since 2019.
Most of these therapies are oral agents, some of which are dosed multiple times daily with only zilebesiran being a parenteral agent that has the opportunity for being dosed once every 6 months. This long duration of action poses a unique opportunity for hypertension that we'll discuss a little bit later in the market but with this proliferation of therapies, the open question becomes what are the residual barriers to effective control.
If we have so many effective agents for treatment, why is it that blood pressure is not more effectively controlled to the guideline recommended targets? Well there are many possible explanations for this. The first is that there is generally poor access to care for many of our patients so that hypertension is underdiagnosed. Amongst those patients, there is also an adequate education and awareness of the importance of blood pressure control. So even when they hear the messages in our clinics about the need to treat hypertension, sometimes it falls on deaf ears.
Even when patients are in clinic, we sometimes fail to measure blood pressure at the clinical opportunities that we have it. And therefore, we failed to diagnose hypertension appropriately. And even when blood pressure is elevated, many providers fail to act to treat hypertension in clinical practice, and that is the problem of therapeutic inertia.
Once medications are prescribed, providers feel they've done their job, but then many of our patients who are given multiple daily oral medication regimens to take for their hypertension and comorbid medical illnesses struggle with adherence in the setting of polypharmacy and the need for multiple daily dosing of many of the pills and poor adherence to medications contributes to the burden of uncontrolled hypertension and practice.
And then finally, a certain proportion of patients, even with effective therapy remain resistant to anti-hypertensive treatment, although this is really the minority of patients estimated to be about 10% of patients with truly resistant hypertension in clinical practice.
Examining some of the barriers to hypertension in more detail, this slide focuses on the effects of adherence to anti-hypersensive therapy and cardiovascular risk. Amongst young adults in this survey, taking antihypertensive medications. About 63% were non-adherent based on proportion of pharmacy fills of prescribed medications. And those patients who were non-adherent not unexpectedly, had nearly 1.6 fold the risk of cardiovascular disease over subsequent follow-up and there was a direct correlation between the extent of adherence to prescribed medical therapy and the reduction in cardiovascular risk with more adherent patients being more protected from the downstream consequences of uncontrolled hypertension.
It's estimated that nearly half of patients prescribed anti-hypertensive therapy discontinue those prescribed medications within a year of initiation and up to 10% of daily oral medication doses are often omitted in clinical practice and sometimes these are only once-daily medicine, which means that all the therapeutic effect is lost.
Beyond the control of office blood pressure, which is typically our target for clinical intervention, we've understood now that there is a lot of variability in blood pressure outside of the office that needs attention. The mean of office blood pressure readings over several visits is typically utilized to direct therapy, but we know that blood pressure fluctuates a lot over both the short and the long term.
Episodic high values or extreme values are often disregarded as aberrations, but emerging evidence suggests that diurnal variation over the full 24-hour cycle and the variability in blood pressure between clinical visits are not just noise, but actually carry prognostic importance and maybe important targets for therapy. And this is really the rationale for thinking about opportunities for continuous control of blood pressure in practice.
We have some opportunity to measure the efficacy of control of blood pressure over the full 24-hour cycle using 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. And although this is not commonly utilized in clinical practice, examination of 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure data gives us some understanding of how variations in the blood pressure over the 24-hour cycle may contribute to risk.
We've long understood that there is a typical pattern of fall in blood pressure during the nighttime such that blood pressure dips in healthy patients and patients with cardiovascular risk factors, particularly diabetes, obesity tend to dip less during the nighttime, and that failure of the blood pressure to dip in the nighttime is associated with heightened risk.
And in fact, some patients have increase in blood pressure during the nighttime, and this nocturnal hypertension is associated with a particularly high-risk phenotype.
If we look at blood pressure in large populations, daytime hypertension certainly contributes risk, but that risk is amplified even further if it has continued through the nighttime. And it's this data that really underscores the need for continuous control of blood pressure over the full 24-hour interval to secure effective cardiovascular risk reduction.
Beyond that short-term variability in blood pressure, it is important to control long-term variability in blood pressure. And one way to estimate that long-term variability is looking at the standard deviation of blood pressure between consecutive office visit. And as that standard deviation increases, as you can see here in the slides, looking at deciles, of the standard deviation between -- in between visit blood pressure independent of the mean blood pressure.
There's a steady rise in the increase in the risk of stroke, as well as the risk of coronary events that increases -- that is associated with that increasing standard deviation. So more blood pressure variability translates into more strokes, more coronary events. And it's estimated that for every standard deviation increase, there's an 18% increase in cardiovascular death and a 15% increase in the risk of stroke.
That variability is also captured in the measure of extremes of blood pressure. And if we look at the relationship between maximum blood pressures measured over serial follow-up and risk, there's also a greater association such that those patients having the widest spikes in blood pressure carry the highest risk of stroke. And this is data from the ASCOT trial the Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiovascular Outcomes Trial, but it's been replicated in other context. And the implication of this is that more aggressive blood pressure control, not just in the office, but over the full 24-hour interval and extending between visits, such that there's less volatility over time is critically important to effective cardiovascular risk reduction.
One way of capturing the efficacy of blood pressure control is to measure the time that patients spend in the range of target. And in this case, that blood pressure target is set by the current guidelines is less than 130 millimeters of mercury. And you can see on the slide that if patients have a higher time in the target range, where they're more in the gray zone of effective control that they have lower risk of cardiovascular events and cardiorenal events, I should say. And then if you look at the patient on the second panel of the slide, who is spending more time outside of the gray zone, that patient has heightened risk of major adverse events.
And indeed, when we look in clinical practice at large epidemiologic data sets, there's a tight correlation between the time that patients spend in the therapeutic range and the risk to both renal or kidney and cardiovascular events, with a steady decline in risk associated with heightened time in the therapeutic range. And it's really this data that supports the hypothesis that agents that could provide more continuous control of short- and long-term variability in blood pressure will return higher benefits with regard to cardiovascular risk reduction.
So I think at this point, the data suggests that hypertension needs a new approach. Despite effective therapy, many patients with hypertension remain poorly controlled, physicians commonly fail to adapt therapy even when blood pressure is high, contributing to poor time in the therapeutic range. Adherence to daily oral any hypertensive regimens is poor in clinical practice and undermines blood pressure control. Even when office blood pressure appears controlled, residual visit-to-visit blood pressure variability in nocturnal hypertension contribute to ongoing CV risk, an effective reduction in cardiovascular risk really requires a strategy then to address therapeutic inertia, treatment nonadherence and blood pressure variability over the short and long term.
And although there are a range of novel oral antihypertensives that are coming available in clinical practice, these are unlikely to effectively meet this challenge, particularly given the need for patients to take multiple medications and clinical practice to manage hypertension in the comorbidity in which it commonly lives. Thanks very much for your attention.
Thank you, Dr. Desai. I'm Ishir Bhan, Executive Director of Clinical Research and Clinical Lead for zilebesiran's Phase III study at Alnylam. As Dr. Desai and Pushkal outlined, a significant unmet need exists today, and it's projected to grow through 2050. This unmet need is driven by multiple factors that leave patients at elevated cardiovascular risk. Despite numerous classes of oral antihypertensives, the underlying contributors of this challenge remain unaddressed. Against this backdrop, I'll discuss the therapeutic hypothesis behind zilebesiran and why we believe it has the potential to address key drivers of cardiovascular risk.
Zilebesiran represents a fundamentally differentiated approach to managing hypertension by targeting angiotensinogen, or AGT, the most upstream precursor to the RAS the body's primary pathway for regulating blood pressure. By suppressing AGT production, zilebesiran acts upstream of conventional medications like ACE inhibitors, ARBs and MRAs, potentially avoiding compensatory changes in the pathway that may limit effects on blood pressure and target organ stress. Unlike conventional short-acting medications. Zilebesiran has demonstrated the potential to provide continuous control of blood pressure with just twice yearly dosing. Through this continuous control, zilebesiran has the potential to address critical gaps that contribute to the ongoing unmet need outlined by Dr. Desai and ultimately improve outcomes for patients with high cardiovascular risk or established CVD.
I'll now walk us through the clinical evidence that supports this therapeutic hypothesis. Zilebesiran was evaluated across multiple treatment settings in the KARDIA Phase II program. KARDIA-1 studied zilebesiran as monotherapy in patients with mild to moderate hypertension providing an early opportunity to understand the potential of AGT suppression for blood pressure control. As shown here, patients who received zilebesiran monotherapy achieved an average placebo-adjusted blood pressure reduction of 10 millimeters of mercury, while also experiencing continued also experiencing continued control of blood pressure throughout the 24-hour period.
The lack of sustained long-term blood pressure control is a key contributor to cardiovascular risk. We have also observed in KARDIA-1 that patients who received one dose of zilebesiran every 6 months, achieved sustained 24-hour blood pressure control for an entire year. These results, which demonstrate sustained continuous control of blood pressure further reinforce our belief in zilebesiran's differentiated profile. Zilebesiran's safety profile has been consistently reassuring throughout Phase II with experience spanning 889 patients treated with zilebesiran.
Throughout the Phase II program, we observed low rates of adverse events, including hyperkalemia and hypotension. Importantly, most of these events resolved without intervention and did not lead to treatment discontinuation. In both KARDIA-2 and 3 where zilebesiran was studied in patients receiving background ACE inhibitor or ARB therapy, low rates of hyperkalemia and kidney injury were observed.
This is particularly encouraging because therapies that inhibit the RAS are known to increase the risk of hyperkalemia and acute kidney injury, especially when used in combination. Taken together, the efficacy and safety data generated to date support continued development of zilebesiran and its valuation in ZENITH, our Phase III cardiovascular outcomes trial.
The most recent Phase II study, KARDIA-3, was key to informing the Phase III study population and dose. Just like ZENITH, this study enrolled patients with uncontrolled hypertension on at least 2 antihypertensives, with either high cardiovascular risk or established cardiovascular disease. A key objective of KARDIA-3 was to evaluate zilebesiran in patients with uncontrolled hypertension receiving treatment with a diuretic at baseline.
This was an important population study because diuretics are known to activate the RAS by increasing renin levels, potentially amplifying the response to therapies that inhibit this pathway. Based on this biology, we hypothesized that zilebesiran could be particularly effective in these patients. To better understand the importance of these factors, we conducted both prespecified and post-hoc analyses.
KARDIA-3 included a diverse patient population with meaningful proportions of black and Hispanic patients as well as patients with established cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, Notably, the vast majority of the patients were maintained a treatment with ACE inhibitors or ARBs. These patient characteristics were maintained in our post-hoc study population which closely reflects the patients in our pivotal Phase III trial.
In the overall KARDIA-3 cohort A population, we observed clinically meaningful reductions in blood pressure. As expected, the prespecified and post-hoc analyses confirmed an enhanced blood pressure lowering response of approximately 9 millimeters of mercury in patients receiving zilebesiran and the background diuretic, particularly in patients with a systolic blood pressure greater or equal to 140 millimeters of mercury at baseline.
These data demonstrated zilebesiran's ability to achieve clinically significant reductions in blood pressure in our Phase III target population. As Dr. Desai outlined, nighttime blood pressure is the powerful indicator of cardiovascular outcomes. Patients who do not experience a normal nighttime dip in blood pressure faced a significantly higher risk of cardiovascular events. As you can see here, we evaluated the effect of single dose of zilebesiran in both patients with normal nighttime dipping or dippers and patients without a nighttime dip, also known as non-dippers. The majority of patients in study were non-dipper. In this analysis, we observed that a single dose of zilebesiran achieved a clinically significant nighttime blood pressure control as well as the potential to restore nighttime dipping in patients who were classed as non-dippers at baseline.
These results were observed at month 6, highlighting the durability of this control with a single dose. These findings provide additional support for zilebesiran's ability to achieve continuous control and suggest an additional mechanism by which zilebesiran could further decrease cardiovascular risk. Beyond the blood pressure control, we have observed the impact of zilebesiran on other independent indicators of cardiovascular and renal risk, including NT-proBNP and proteinuria.
In patients with modest elevation in these biomarkers we saw 21% to 26% reductions in NT-proBNP and 32% to 37% reduction in the urine albumin creatinine ratio.
Notably, these clinically meaningful events were evident as early as month 1 and were sustained through the 6-month dosing interval. These findings provide additional evidence beyond blood pressure reduction that support the potential of zilebesiran to improve patient outcomes in the Phase III cardiovascular outcomes trial.
As we conclude this section, I'll return to a key theme from Dr. Desai's discussion. Patients remain at elevated cardiovascular risk because we struggle to achieve and maintain continuous control over time. Contributing factors include poor nighttime blood pressure control, visit-to-visit blood pressure variability, poor adherence and spending too little time in the target range.
Across the Phase II program, we've seen encouraging evidence that zilebesiran has the potential to address these needs by providing continuous control of blood pressure with just twice yearly dosing. We look forward to continuing to test the hypothesis in ZENITH.
I'll now pass it to Simon Fox to tell you more about ZENITH and the potential we see for zilebesiran.
Thank you, Ishir, for that comprehensive overview of zilebesiran's clinical profile. I am Simon Fox, Vice President and Program Lead for zilebesiran at Alnylam. I'll now walk you through the progress we've made to date and how we are positioned zilebesiran for the future. As Ishir highlighted, the robust data generated in Phase II, reinforced our belief that zilebesiran's ability to provide continuous control with twice-yearly dosing could meaningfully improve cardiovascular outcomes in high-risk patients for whom the urgency to treat is the greatest. To that end, we are executing ZENITH a trial designed to generate a compelling data package for regulatory review and if approved, support broad uptake at launch.
Importantly, the program has received Fast Track designation from the U.S. FDA and breakthrough therapy designation in China, reflecting the significant unmet need and potential of zilebesiran. ZENITH is an event-driven trial comparing zilebesiran to standard of care in patients with uncontrolled hypertension despite treatment with multiple oral antihypertensives who have established cardiovascular disease or at high risk of cardiovascular disease. Patients in ZENITH will have a minimum follow-up of 2 years with a prior outcome of cardiovascular death, nonfatal MI, nonfatal stroke or hospitalization for heart failure urgent heart failure visits.
ZENITH, Alnylam's largest clinical trial to date initiated last September. The study will enroll 11,000 patients across 35 countries with a global footprint that reflects Alnylam and Roche's shared ambition of bringing zilebesiran to patients across the globe. We are now actively screening and randomizing patients in all of our 35 target countries.
Encouragingly, ZENITH has generated strong enthusiasm among investigators and the broader community, which is translating into strong execution with enrollment very much on track. We recognize that successfully bringing a medicine like zilebesiran to patients requires time, preparation and strategic investment, which is why we earn our partners at Roche are laying the foundations today.
While we focus on strong execution of the Phase III trial, we are also advancing a broader strategy to maximize zilebesiran's potential that includes generating real-world evidence to further characterize the magnitude of unmet need alongside medical education and scientific exchange to support ZENITH enrollments. Given zilebesiran's potential to provide continuous control of blood pressure, we are also assessing development opportunities in high-need populations such as heart failure and chronic kidney disease.
We are also making strategic investments to support future supply and scale. This includes expanded manufacturing capacity through our siRELIS Enzymatic Ligation platform, which is designed to increase capacity and support future launches in prevalent diseases. Finally, we're building commercial readiness by drawing on Alnylam's proven launch engine and experience navigating buy-and-bill pathways, which will scale for this opportunity. Taken together, these efforts are intended to position us to effectively deliver zilebesiran to patients and health care providers if the program is successful.
We are making these investments because uncontrolled hypertension remains the leading modifiable risk factor for death and cardiovascular disease worldwide. Across seven major markets, more than 200 million adults live with hypertension and roughly 1/3 are at high cardiovascular risk. Despite treatment with multiple oral antihypertensive therapies, up to 80% of patients remain uncontrolled and this is where we see the clearest opportunity for impact. The consequences of uncontrolled hypertension extend well beyond patients placing a significant burden on the health care system.
Hypertension accounts for an estimated $292 billion in annual costs to the U.S. and a health care system with 61% attributed to uncontrolled hypertension. This underscores that the burden is concentrating exactly the population we're focused on. And looking ahead, the global economic burden is projected to exceed $500 billion annually by 2050.
Generating real-world evidence in hypertensive populations will be critical in characterizing and quantifying the burden of uncontrolled hypertension. This analysis of contemporary U.S. claims data paints a stark picture showing that even high-risk patients being treated with multiple oral antihypertensives, spent most of their time outside of target blood pressure range, leaving them at elevated cardiovascular risk.
These findings highlight the significant gap that persists today and reinforce the need to investigate a therapy designed for durable effect like zilebesiran. We believe the opportunity for zilebesiran is not to simply become another antihypertensive, but to establish an entirely new category in cardiovascular care. That opportunity rests on four pillars: the potential to improve cardiovascular outcomes, continuous control, infrequent twice-yearly dosing and a well-tolerated profile that can complement existing therapies. Together, these attributes supported by an outcomes evidence strategy have the potential to differentiate zilebesiran from the therapies that rely on daily adherence and are designed primarily to lower blood pressure alone.
Our view of the opportunity is reinforced by encouraging signals across patients, prescribers and payers. Physicians see significant unmet need with 72% of physicians surveyed agreeing zilebesiran addresses a critical gap in care and 3 and 4 indicating intent to prescribe. Fortunately, they view zilebesiran as a differentiated therapy with the potential to become a cardiovascular protective agent.
Patients are similarly enthusiastic describing zilebesiran as promising and exciting with twice yearly dosing emerging as a key benefit that could help support long-term adherence. And finally, payer feedback is clear. Cardiovascular risk reduction is the critical decision driver, an insight that aligns with our development strategy and reinforces the importance of the outcomes data we intend to generate through ZENITH.
As Dr. Desai shared, the lack of durable blood pressure control is significantly contributing to increased cardiovascular risk. The findings from SPRINT provided unequivocal proof of both the benefits and the challenges of achieving durable blood pressure control over the long term. In the controlled clinical trial phase, patients received intensive blood pressure treatment had a reduced risk of cardiovascular and all-cause mortality compared to those receiving standard treatment. However, those benefits quickly diminished once the clinical trial ended and patients entered the observational phase, highlighting how challenging it is for patients to maintain durable blood pressure control in the real-world setting.
This raise is an important question. What if a therapy could provide continuous control of blood pressure with infrequent dosing over the long term to help address these challenges. We believe zilebesiran represents an opportunity to help answer that question with the goal of delivering continuous control through twice yearly dosing.
Before we close, it is important to remember what is at stake. Patients who continue to face significant cardiovascular risk despite today's treatment options, I would like to offer you the opportunity to hear from Bob a patient living with uncontrolled hypertension and high cardiovascular risk.
Hi. My name is Bob, and I'm living with hypertension and high cardiovascular risk. For years, I felt fine and convince myself that I had a handle on my high blood pressure. Looking back, that decision nearly cost me my life. At 45, I suffered a heart attack and left permanent damage to my heart. Hypertension is often called silent killer for a reason and my experience taught me that even when you feel healthy. Uncontrolled blood pressure can have life-threatening consequences.
As for patients like Bob that we continue to pursue innovation driven by the belief that innovation is needed and that we can do more to improve long-term outcomes.
With that, I will turn it over to Pushkal to moderate Q&A. Pushkal?
Thanks, Simon. And all right. Lots of interest I'm seeing some questions. So let's move into the Q&A section. We've already gotten a number of questions coming in, but to those on the call, if you have additional questions, please enter them into the web app.
So the first set of questions that we've gotten are all around this concept of continuous control, particularly time and target range. And so a couple of questions maybe for you, Akshay, and then Simon, you should also chime in. But really how robust is this concept of time and target range? What do we understand from real-world data? Can you just summarize some of your points, Akshay, around that?
And then Simon, to you, what gives us confidence coming out of Phase II that we might see benefits in that. And then importantly, how do you measure time and target range? Is that actually something you can measure in clinical practice? Is it something we're measuring in ZENITH? Is that something that could be a competitive differentiator for this kind of a drug?
Yes. So Pushkal, I think important questions. I think one of the points I think that needs to be made is that most of our therapeutic assessment in heart and hypertension is largely based on single measurements blood pressure in the office, and we understand the limitations of office-based blood pressure, sometimes it's not terribly representative of how blood pressure varies in the ambulatory setting and practice there's variation, as we discussed over the full 24-hour cycle in between visits and blood pressure that's not captured in those spot checks in the office. And so I think the -- we know that the blood pressure is a continuous exposure for patients and that's that continuous exposure that relates to risk.
So I think as a concept, it's very appealing to think about what proportion of time in their ambient life patients present -- spend in the optimal range of blood pressure because we think that is reasonably expected to be a better correlative risk. Now the evidence for that is largely based on clinical trials, which we've looked at post-hoc or even epidemiologic data sets, where we can measure blood pressure serially over time in the office or even at home and then look at the proportion of those measures that actually fit within our target range.
And the greater proportion of measurements that are taken over longitudinal follow-up for a patient that fit within that range the better the outcomes seem to be both when we look at renal events and we look at some positive cardiovascular events like stroke and myocardial infarction.
So I think there's a fairly robust belief that the more time you spend in a target range the better you expect our outcomes to be. And the only limitation has been our ability to continuously manage blood pressure over time to really robustly assess that treatment response.
Fantastic. Simon, do you want to just add a little bit from what we've learned...
Yes, not not much more to add but really what we saw in the Phase II, the totality of the Phase II data really does speak to that therapeutic hypothesis that Akshay just spoke to. And really, that was highlighted by this ability to achieve continuous control of blood pressure throughout the 24-hour period with only 2 doses a year. So that really does speak to that.
Fantastic. And maybe the follow-on I guess, Akshay, to you is could we just accomplish the same things by just intensifying and combining more oral therapies for patients. And do you think the aldosterone synthase inhibitors might help in that regard?
Yes, it's an appealing thought. And I think, obviously, we are extremely excited about the proliferation of new drugs for hypertension, the resurgent interest in this field. But I think that the challenge has never been in hypertension that we don't have enough drugs to treat our patients. We have very effective therapies it's that the drugs aren't deployed to complete effect in clinical practice.
And that's either a problem with access to care, it's a problem with physician use of the medications or it's a problem with patient adherence. And I think when we integrate this concept of control outside of the office and that longitudinal control over the 24-hour interval in between visits, then I think we have an even larger problem because we have these very stringent blood pressure targets that we know mitigate long-term risk of cardiorenal outcomes.
And we know that on the whole, we haven't done a great job of controlling blood pressures even with the arsenal that we have. So I think the problem is really not likely to be solved by stacking additional oral antihypertensives, I think that may indeed exacerbate the problem because some of the problem for patients is this huge array of medicines that they have to take each day and the difficulty with doing it.
There's this data that I highlighted is that most patients prescribed the medicine about half of them by a year have stopped taking it or -- and that adherence problem, I think, is a real challenge for us moving forward. And I don't think it's solved by even a more effective correlation.
Very helpful. And Victoria, I mean, for you, how do you kind of see -- let me introduce Victoria Silva, who heads up our commercial team for zilebesiran. Thank you for joining us for this portion. How -- building on what Akshay said, how do you think about these new branded therapies like aldosterone synthase inhibitors that are coming forward in a very highly genericized market? And how zilebesiran might ultimately, if it does bear out in ZENITH compete in that space?
Yes. So what we really see about zilebesiran is that we're creating a new category. We're going to be -- we believe we are a cardiovascular protection agent. We are not just another blood pressure lowering agent. And we believe that exact design is what differentiates us and sets us apart the other existing therapies. And to a lot of the points made will allow us to establish continuous control will allow us to overcome the adherence hurdles that we see with the oral therapies today.
And so we think those things combine are really what sets us apart. And that, in addition, the uptake of emerging therapies really helps validate the need for this innovation. So what we're seeing in the marketplace is actually encouraging to us that there is absolutely space for zilebesiran to enter the market.
And if I could jump in, I would just say that one of the real opportunities here is to completely reinvent the paradigm for prevention, right, which is that rather than waiting for patients to show up in the office, identify the blood pressures out of range and then react to that observation, whatever the genesis of that problem is here's an opportunity to intervene early to provide continuous background control of blood pressure and secure blood pressure lowering and cardiovascular risk reduction without the need to rely on the clastic nature of how patients take their medication.
So that's a really important point. And I imagine with wearables and things like that. that's only going to their normal lives. Ishir, maybe I can turn to you. There's a number of questions that have come through in your presentation about the learnings from KARDIA-3. And I think there's a number of questions that have come through in terms of, okay, given the study didn't sort of meet its threshold benefit that we were looking for, but then there's a series of analyses that look for enriched population. What gives us confidence? Can you just speak a little bit more to like the idea about the diuretics.
Is that just a subgroup that was identified? Or there a biologic rationale for that? The cutoff of 140 that was employed to sort of look for an enrichment in KARDIA-3. Can you just explain a little bit more about that? And what gives us confidence that the choices that we made coming out of KARDIA-3 are likely to translate into a sizable or meaningful blood pressure benefit in ZENITH?
So based on our known biology and prior research with both zilebesiran and other RAS agents, even prior to KARDIA-3, we suspected we might see enhanced responses zilebesiran in patients on diuretics as well as patients with a blood pressure of at least 140, which is a standard threshold for Stage II hypertension. And both blood pressure and background diuretic use were included as prespecified stratification factors in KARDIA-3 and both were also included in prespecified post-hoc analyses.
So I would say KARDIA-3 met its objective in three key ways. First, it helped identify the population most likely to benefit from zilebesiran that is patients receiving two or more background antihypertensives, one being a diuretic, with the systolic blood pressure at least 140 millimeters. In this population, zilebesiran achieved an enhanced response of 8 to 10 millimeters in office and 24-hour systolic blood pressure out to month 6.
Second, it confirms the safety of zilebesiran in combination with two or more background anti-hypertensive in patients with high cardiovascular risk. And third, it established the dose for the Phase III, a twice yearly 300-milligram injection. So in conclusion, KARDIA-3 helps optimize the design the target patient population and the dose for the Phase III cardiovascular outcome trial ZENITH. Taken together, the KARDIA-3 results give us and our partners at Roche, the confidence to advance zilebesiran into this pivotal Phase III cardiovascular outcome trial.
Thank you Ishir, that's really great and clear. So maybe building on that, Simon, we questions coming, you've shown blood pressure benefit already with this drug, blood pressure is a registerable endpoint Akshay talked about how important that continues to go. So why not just register on blood pressure. Why why the investment in the sizable outcome study?
Yes. So it's a great question Pushkal, and look, you heard from Ishir, we saw really encouraging results in our Phase II studies. And illustrated by a zilebesiran ability to achieve continuous control of blood pressure with only twice yearly dosing. And we believe all of the salient points that Akshay mentioned, that this has the potential to improve cardiovascular outcomes.
And it's worth acknowledging that it's an entrenched generic oral antihypertensive market. And outcomes data will be required to differentiate zilebesiran beyond blood pressure alone. And Alnylam and our partners at Roche we really do believe zilebesiran potentially become a category creator.
As Victoria's said, in cardiovascular risk management and not just another antihypertensive and generating that outcomes data for initial launch is key to our strategy. And just to repeat again, it's worth mentioning that zilebesiran was awarded Fast Track designation by the FDA, a breakthrough therapy designation in China, which we believe really illustrates how we view both the unmet need and the potential of zilebesiran to improve outcomes.
Good. And then I think a follow-up from there, as you just highlighted, why there was a biologic rationale for requiring background diuretics, we saw a larger treatment effect in that population. But all concerned, Simon, and maybe that this is going to constrain the label in some way?
And two, and maybe more importantly, I guess to you, Akshay, can you just talk about this population that we've highlighted that Ishir highlighted and Simon, that we're enrolling in ZENITH, how representative of that is that of the patients that you see? Are these zebra patients as we talk about medicine? Or are these kind of what you see -- how common is this type of patients that we're targeting. So maybe, Simon, you can start and then we'll go to Akshay.
Yes. So I'll just do it the direct look. We fully believe at launch, we'll have a broad indication and label. And we don't think like indicated to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events in patients with hypertension with either established cardiovascular disease or at high risk of cardiovascular disease.
Yes. No, I think if you look at the population of patients that I see in my clinical practice, I would say that the vast majority are diuretic-treated. The epidemiology says that about half of patients with hypertension are treated with the diuretic. But when you look at the high-risk population, the uncontrolled hypertensive be more elderly patients with hypertension, the vast majority are on a diuretic and ace-diuretic or ARB diuretic or calcium channel blocker diuretic combinations are far and away the most common combinations that are used in clinical practice.
So I think the -- when I look at the ZENITH design, I think we're talking about patients with uncontrolled hypertension on to medications, including a diuretic who are at high cardiovascular risk. Those are the patients that we see in a large proportion of a cardiology practice that's focused on hypertension. But I don't think these are zebras at all. I think this is the meat of the patients who have the most urgent need for hypertension treatment.
And it's actually worth mentioning, you mentioned first-line guideline recommended diuretics are. And for the specific target patient population of the stud in ZENITH, obviously, they're on background diuretic. It's around about 80% of the patients with high cardiovascular risk are on background diuretics. So that's why we believe that ZENITH really does represent a contemporary population.
Good. Maybe we can then turn now then a little bit to ZENITH. We got a number of questions. I guess, first of all, what level of MACE benefit and maybe Ishir, you can start and Victoria it'll good to get your comments, would be clinically meaningful and commercially compelling. Are we powered? What level of effect are we powered for. And then how do you guys handle in the study patients who might be starting new therapies, et cetera, or down-titrating their background medicines.
And does that compromise our ability to see an effect of people start a new therapy in the context of the study, et cetera. So a number of questions there. But Maybe Ishir we can start from you in terms of just how you think about the clinical effect size we're looking for powering and how background medicines are handled in the context of the study?
So given the blood pressure reductions we saw in the KARDIA-3 in this enriched population, we feel it's realistic to expect a 15% to 20% reduction in MACE, and we're conservatively powered to assess the magnitude of an effect in ZENITH our Phase III cardiovascular outcome trial. And with regard to background medications, we do allow those to be titrated in the ZENITH trial. We don't expect that's going to have a sizable effect on our impact. We also believe this magnitude of effect will be compelling to regulators. And maybe I'll let Victoria speak to what that means for us commercially.
Thanks, Ishir. So from a commercial perspective, we believe a benefit in that range would be highly compelling. A 15% to 20% base reduction and exactly have a type of benefit that resonates with cardiologists and we believe would position zelbisiran as a cardiovascular protected agent, not just another blood pressure lowering therapy.
The physician response and our research is strong, and it tells us that we're targeting the right bar. A benefit at this level supports strong access and premium positioning. We feel good about where this lands us with payers for whom MACE reduction is the #1 decision driver and the value it ultimately command.
Fantastic. And maybe Ishir, building on your point, I mean, I think we've designed ZENITH really to be, in some ways, representative a real-world practice kind of study. I mean because of the infrequent administration, these are not patients who are coming in every month or every couple of weeks to get their blood pressure checked.
You guys have designed this right, as almost a Q6-month type of visiting schedule visit schedule in the study, which mirrors real world where I think Akshay has already high adherence and titration is not always as vigorous as we would sort of see and sometimes a much more intense short-term clinical trial setting. Is that fair?
That's exactly right. And that's why we don't expect that we'll see a lot of changes in these background medications that we know that from what happens in clinical practice. And that's where zilebesiran's long-acting nature were really the advantageous.
Yes, I think one of the real opportunities in ZENITH is to examine our practice, right? I think what we can see from the work that's been done so far. If the clinicians often confronted with an elevated blood pressure in clinic, choose not to engage it. And it's largely many reasons. But I think often it's the suspicion that it may not be accurate -- may not reflect what's going on in day-to-day practice at home.
And so I think as much as you might be concerned that there would be aggressive utilization in the control arm of ZENITH of other medicines that hasn't borne out in practice general people are pretty lack of days ago about blood pressure therapy.
Yes. No, it's a really important point and hopefully, something we can help address. Maybe just building on this concept of the MACE reduction that we're looking for. And I think Simon highlighted, actually, you've highlighted that there's an element of blood pressure management that is guideline driven. And so I guess it would be helpful to understand from your perspective as an academic thought leader in medical societies.
If this side delivers a 15% or 20% MACE reduction or what else would be needed to kind of put this in guidelines, again, given there are a lot of generic medicines and guidelines do drive a certain amount of clinical practice?
Well, I think it's an important question. It's probably an important question, both for -- especially for payers and other things because a lot of how we elect to select therapies and prioritized therapies is driven by how the guidelines are written. It's -- I think that the key message here is that guidelines are heavily driven by the weight of evidence and by the science. And I think if we look at blood pressure as a target is probably not enough to simply show that agents reduce blood pressure, even if they do it over the full 24-hour cycle, that's true for many agents. It's been true for agents that we've had available for a long time.
And so I think the point of differentiation here is really the randomized outcome trial that will show that effectively addressing CV risk reduction through this strategy will actually translate into long-term outcomes. And I think with that data and the projected 15% to 20% reduction, I think that would be compelling for -- to differentiate this approach from others that exist in the literature and perhaps motivate recommendations in that regard.
Super helpful. Ishir, back to you. A couple of questions just around safety. We have a long-acting medication to treat hypertension. So I think a couple of things you did touch on the safety profile. Maybe you can just recap and what were there any surprises from a safety perspective?
And then, I guess, more importantly, the question is coming through is what happens -- how do physicians -- are they expected to manage if some intercurrent event happens like low blood pressure, et cetera. Are they able to stop their other medications? What does that mean? How do you manage those? Or if someone needs to have something happened in terms of managing blood pressure because they're having an operation or something like that?
Yes. So with any therapy that targets the rest, one would expect to see some degree of elevated potassium reduced eGFR and low blood pressure. But in our Phase II program, we were really struck by what we found. We were pleased to see that the rates of these were quite low. And even though the zilebesiran has this 6-month duration of action, when these events did happen, they were transient and really addressable with just standard of care intervention. So that's what we'd expect to see in our clinical trial and in the real world.
Overall, we've been very encouraged by the safety profile generated in the Phase I and Phase II with almost now 1,000 patients exposed to zilebesiran across really multiple settings, including monotherapy and in combination with other antihypertensives. These have included patients already on ACE inhibitors and ARBs and patients with moderate to severe chronic kidney disease as well as patients who have received multiple doses of zilebesiran.
Very helpful. Very helpful. Akshay, some questions for you that are kind of -- I think you're best positioned to answer is just the ZENITH study and zilebesiran being developed, really to focus on the secondary prevention indication and in high-risk patients. But let's assume it's successful. Where do you -- where would you be interested in understanding if this kind of a modality or mechanism would actually be useful?
Is it -- are there other spaces in hypertension? Are there other diseases we know RAS inhibition is used in other cardiac conditions and clinical conditions. So what would be of interest to you as a clinician and as clinician scientist in terms of thinking about where you might take a medication like this, assuming it continues to look favorable?
Yes. So I think there are two areas that immediately come to mind. I think if you think about the role that hypertension plays and the pathogenesis of heart failure development the role and progression of heart failure in patients with established heart failure. And then you think about chronic kidney disease in the role that hypertension plays, hypertension is the leading driver of disease progression in both of those disease states. And the renin-angiotensin system is a key mediator of disease progression in both of those states. We've known for a long time that patients with CKD and those with heart failure across the ejection fraction spectrum benefit from renin-angiotensin system inhibition.
And so I think those are two very high profile and high priority areas for expansion of a drug that is effective because we would imagine that a drug that provides blood pressure reduction, better time in the therapeutic range, longitudinal control and overcome some of the adherence challenges of daily oral medications would equally benefit, if not more so, those high-risk patients with established CKD and heart value. So I think that would be a super exciting next step.
Another way to think about this is even moving more approximately in the hypertension treatment armamentarium because I think we're now looking at a second intervention in high-risk patients but one could imagine this as a backbone for hypertension management to secure initial blood pressure lowering.
And it might be the case that for some lower-risk patients with hypertension, this might be all you need to control blood pressure in the range. And if not, it would be a scaffold on which to stack more -- fewer oral medicines to achieve blood pressure targets. So I think another direction to potentially take this.
Fascinating. Lots of opportunity potentially ahead. Victoria, maybe a question for you that's come in is another siRNA sort of in a prevalent condition is inclisiran, LEQVIO that was originated here but now being marketed by Novartis. What have we learned from that experience that helps us think about how -- again, assuming ZENITH is positive and that we would potentially launch a drug like zilebesiran and what challenges it might be faced and what have we learned from that experience that we can address?
So one of the original challenges Novartis faced actually informed our Phase III and exactly why we did a cardiovascular outcomes trial with ZENITH. We believe that this outcomes trial will actually create that differentiated profile, drive physician uptake, support broad access and establish the value of the medicine.
So we learned exactly from what inclisiran didn't initially do to design our Phase III. Today, though, inclisiran is starting to be a tailwind for us. While another challenge for LEQVIO early on was that cardiologist weren't yet comfortable with buy and bill, that has really changed significantly as customers have gained experience.
In the U.S., LEQVIO sales grew 55% last quarter. So it's a blockbuster that's really matured the whole channel. Unlike a first-time entrant, we're also not entering this from scratch. Through AMVUTTRA's cardiomyopathy launch, Alnylam is already running buy and bill and cardiology with 90% of patients able to get treated close to home. So we're -- with zilebesiran stepping into an established pathway with our own cardiology track record behind us. We're clear that we will have more work to do ahead, but we like where this positions us.
Fantastic. And then I think maybe this will be our last question. We got an interesting question, which is, is there an increased risk for ZENITH and the questioner is asking about a number of recent setbacks in terms of cardiovascular outcomes trials with Lp(a), the eplontersen study, IL-6, et cetera. And whether that poses now a risk in terms of ZENITH and how we think about that. So maybe I can start, but Akshay and others, I'd invite you to add as well.
I think I think as we look at it from Alnylam, A, we've really tried with our colleagues at Roche to really look at the risk in a number of different ways, right? There's molecule risk, there's biology risk, there's study design risk. And I do think that in this particular instance, I think we're quite well positioned. I think zilebesiran has now been studied in over 1,000 patients. I think we have a pretty good understanding of its pharmacology. We're able to pick the right dose. We have very high levels of knockdown, good tolerability. So that's one piece.
I think the second piece then is around biology risk. We've now shown, I think, repeatedly that we can reduce blood pressure in a variety of settings. The monotherapy is this year highlighted in combination with single agents and then in the intended patient population. And I think hypertension itself, I think, is very, very strongly correlated with outcome. So I don't think there's a lot of uncertainty, biologic uncertainty around predictiveness of blood pressure results translating into outcomes benefits.
And then I think the last piece is study design. And I think what you've heard is that the team really has set a lot of the details in terms of basically running KARDIA-3 is almost a run-in type of study to basically optimize the patient population, some of the study procedures, et cetera, to manage challenges that have plagued other hypertension outcomes trials. And so I think all in all, we feel quite good about what we've designed and quite confident about that.
But -- so that's how I would sort of summarize it. But I don't know, Akshay, Simon, anyone have anything to add?
I think you said it very well. And I think my only add would be that in those other examples that you highlighted, I think we've had a little less certainty about the relevance of the a for the biomarker for predicting cardiovascular outcomes. There is no uncertainty in hypertension that if you can effectively lower blood pressure to a greater extent with zilebesiran than you do in the standard of care arm in ZENITH, that should translate reliably into a cardiovascular outcome benefit. There has been a linear dose response between achieved blood pressure and outcomes in these trials.
So I am quite confident that if we can deliver on that promise, which we have every confidence we can do. And I think, as you said, the study design tuned really to deliver that outcome. I think there's every expectation of benefit.
Fantastic. Well then, I think we will leave it there with that. So thank you to Ishir, Simon, Victoria and Dr. Desai, thank you for joining us today for all your insights and contributions to today's discussion. That's going to be the end of today's RNAi Roundtable.
You can access the replay of the webinar and view the slides in the Capella section of Alnylam's website later today. And we'll welcome all of you back on October 26 for our next and final session, which is focused on ALN-HTT02, our investigational therapy for Huntington's disease. So thank you all for joining, and have a great day.
The meeting has now concluded. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Special Call - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Alnylam updated investors on zilebesiran’s Phase II signals, Phase III ZENITH execution, safety profile, and commercial preparation for a twice‑yearly RNAi hypertension therapy.
🎯 Key Message
- Message: Zilebesiran is an RNA interference (RNAi) drug that suppresses angiotensinogen (AGT) to deliver continuous 24‑hour blood‑pressure control with twice‑yearly dosing; Alnylam presented Phase II efficacy/safety signals and activated the 11,000‑patient ZENITH cardiovascular outcomes trial.
⚡ Strategic Highlights
- Mechanism: Targets AGT, the upstream precursor in the renin‑angiotensin system (RAS), aiming to avoid compensatory pathway effects and sustain long‑duration blood‑pressure suppression.
- Clinical data: KARDIA Phase II showed ~10 mmHg placebo‑adjusted systolic BP reduction (monotherapy), enhanced ~8–10 mmHg in patients on diuretics with baseline SBP ≥140 mmHg, plus early biomarker improvements (NT‑proBNP, albuminuria).
- Program: ZENITH is underway (11,000 patients, 35 countries), Alnylam/Roche secured Fast Track (US) and breakthrough (China) designations, and manufacturing/commercial scale‑up (siRELIS platform, real‑world evidence) is in progress.
🆕 New Information
- Enrollment: ZENITH initiated and actively enrolling; target population refined to patients on ≥2 antihypertensives (one a diuretic) with uncontrolled BP to enrich for effect.
- Dose & safety: Phase II supported a 300 mg twice‑yearly dose with ~889–1,000 patients exposed and low rates of hyperkalemia, hypotension and kidney events, typically transient and manageable.
- Outcomes focus: Trial powered conservatively to detect a ~15–20% reduction in major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) rather than relying on BP change alone.
❓ Analyst Q&A
- Time‑in‑range: Continued emphasis on “time in therapeutic range” and 24‑hour BP control as the mechanistic rationale for outcome benefits; Phase II showed durable 24‑hour control and restored nighttime dipping in many patients.
- Enrichment: Analysts pressed on KARDIA‑3 subgroup findings; management explained a prespecified biological rationale for greater effect with background diuretics and baseline SBP ≥140 mmHg and used that to optimize ZENITH eligibility.
- Outcomes vs BP endpoint: Management defended the large outcomes trial strategy—differentiation in an entrenched generic market requires MACE data; discussed power assumptions, allowance for background med titration, and real‑world‑like visit cadence.
🔚 Bottom Line
- Conclusion: Zilebesiran is positioned as a potential category‑creating, twice‑yearly cardiovascular protection agent backed by Phase II signals and a large outcomes program; positive ZENITH results would be transformational, but investors should weigh multi‑year timelines, outcome‑trial risk, and successful commercial execution.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Morgan Stanley 24th Annual Global Healthcare Conference
1. Question Answer
All right. Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us at the Morgan Stanley Global Healthcare Conference. I'm Mike Ulz, one of the biotech analysts here, and it's my pleasure to introduce the team from Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. Up to my left, Yvonne Greenstreet, CEO; and to her left is John Kennedy, Senior Vice President of Global Commercialization and Lead of the TTR franchise, which I know a lot of people are interested in.
So happy to have you both here. But just a reminder, this is a fireside chat. If anyone has questions, if you raise your hand, we can try and address them in our discussion. But before we get started, I just need to read a quick disclosure. For important disclosures, please see the Morgan Stanley research disclosure website at www.morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures.
If you have any questions, please reach out to your Morgan Stanley sales representative. And with that, maybe I'll just hand it over briefly to Yvonne to make some comments, and then we can hop into the Q&A.
Well, thank you so much. It really is a pleasure to be here, to be here with John. As many of you know, Alnylam is the leading RNAi company. We have a commercial stage TTR franchise business that's growing very rapidly.
We have a rich pipeline with a number of potentially transformative medicines that will be delivering some exciting catalysts over the next year or so. And a real pleasure to be here to dig into the questions you may have for us.
Yes. Great. Thanks for that, Yvonne. And you touched on it already, but you've had a very strong TTR cardiomyopathy launch. So maybe we can start there, and you can describe what's driven the success so far.
That's a great question. We're very proud of what we've accomplished with AMVUTTRA, particularly for patients with TTR cardiomyopathy. In Q2 this year, we crossed $1 billion of revenue in just 1 quarter. And I think that's particularly impressive given that we achieved the cardiomyopathy indication in March of 2025.
So really, really strong progress. And I think that's driven by a number of key drivers. I think the first is the strength of the data that we generated from the landmark HELIOS-B study, where we delivered impressive results with respect to all-cause mortality in all the different subgroups in the study and severity types and patients receiving stabilizers or not.
And really, I think it's been this body of evidence, which we've continued to enrich with additional analyses looking at cardiac structure and function, looking at the benefits on extra cardiac manifestations that I think really provides a compelling proposition for physicians to prescribe AMVUTTRA first line.
And then you put that together with a quarterly subcutaneous administration, which if you like, provides physicians with certified adherence because you're only going to get the benefits from the drug if you actually take the drug. And I think the profile of AMVUTTRA has been very well received by physicians and supports its position as first-line monotherapy.
I think the second key driver is really around access. Again, it's great to have delivered a successful study and have a medicine that's safe and efficacious. But patients have to be able to receive the medicine. I think we've done a really good job being able to ensure that there's unencumbered access really to AMVUTTRA as first-line therapy.
And most patients are able to get access to AMVUTTRA with $0 out-of-pocket cost. And we've really focused on trying to make this convenient for patients and 90% of patients can access AMVUTTRA within 10 miles of their home. So I think really strong setup from an access perspective.
I think the third point is really around physician preference. And what's been remarkable to us actually is that physicians who experience AMVUTTRA, who prescribe AMVUTTRA prefer it. And we have a greater than 50% market share with physicians who have used AMVUTTRA. So that's really very, very encouraging.
And the final point I'd make is just around the market. This is a rapidly growing market, hugely underserved. And so whilst we've made terrific progress with AMVUTTRA, I'm really excited by how much there is ahead of us in terms of helping patients with TTR cardiomyopathy.
Makes sense. And recently on the earnings call, you reset expectations around guidance for the year. So maybe talk about some of the dynamics behind that and what you've been seeing as the launch progresses.
Yes. No, that's a really great question. If we revised our guidance on our Q2 call to $4.2 billion to $4.5 billion for our TTR franchise. That's a $200 million reduction at the midpoint. And that was really driven by a greater understanding of the evolution of the market, particularly as it relates to second-line demand.
When we launched AMVUTTRA in 2025, there were clearly a number of patients with pent-up demand. There are patients who are progressing, they are waiting for a new treatment. And so when we looked at the mix of our business in 2025, it was pretty well balanced between first line for patients that have just been diagnosed with TTR cardiomyopathy and getting a treatment for the first time and patients who were second line, who are already on a treatment.
And what happened as we went into 2026 is that really has normalized, if you like, and stabilized. So we've gone from a mix of business that's been pretty well balanced between first line and second line to now a business that's really approaching what the market -- where the market is, which is 80% first line and 20% second line. So we're trending in that direction.
So really, our focus is, therefore, on making sure that we continue to establish AMVUTTRA as a first-line opportunity for patients. Now some patients who continue to progress will benefit from an alternative therapy. And some physicians when they have to think about how to best treat these patients will think about either adding in an additional therapy.
And if they stabilize, the only opportunity is a silencer like AMVUTTRA or they will think about this in combination.
Makes sense.
Actually, you asked a question about the market fundamentals. And maybe just to touch on that a little bit because I think it is worth emphasizing how strong the market fundamentals are. And I've already talked about access.
I've already talked about the needs in the marketplace with 80% of patients yet to be diagnosed and treated in a market that has roughly 200,000 patients in the U.S. and 500,000 patients around the world.
And so a need to really help these patients get diagnosed and treated and really also the first-line momentum that we're seeing. So I think strong market fundamentals as we look out beyond 2026.
Makes sense. And also want to just touch about on some of the pricing dynamics and maybe how that's evolved through the launch and then this 340B question that's coming up now.
Yes. John, do you want to touch on pricing on 340B?
Yes, absolutely. So in terms of pricing, we have said since launch, and we've been very consistent that we anticipate a modest and gradual reduction in net price just as the volume and experience accrues over time. And that's really what you saw in '25 and '26. And so that's been what we said, and we see that as the outlook.
For 340B, there's a proposed rule change. And obviously, that has gone through the comment period. There's been quite a few voices that have spoken up about that. Particularly on the provider side, there are some very strong voices against that. And so I think it still remains to be seen what will actually come from that comment period and actually what happens with the proposed rule change. That said, even if that were to move forward, I think the other variable is how providers will change their behavior, and there are options.
So there are eligible accounts that anyone can purchase at list price. There are also these alternate sites of care, which we have really built a robust network to make sure that patients have optionality in terms of site of care. And so those are built for volume and built for buy and bill. So there is optionality on the other side of that. And I would say the most important thing is we're focused on AMVUTTRA access, and we see access and utilization across sites of care.
So that's the bottom line for me that whatever happens, we're going to make sure that patients who need AMVUTTRA are going to be able to access AMVUTTRA.
Makes sense. And when do you think this will kind of come to an end? Is it November? Does it keep dragging on? Or just like how does this all play out?
Historically, when there's a rule -- proposed rule change, we expect that in November, somewhere in November is usually when those things are kind of concluded, but it remains to be seen.
Yes. Understood. Maybe we can shift gears to another area of focus, data from the CARDIO-TTRansform study and kind of what that means or doesn't mean for silencers. Maybe share what you learned from the detailed results and maybe how it might impact AMVUTTRA or not?
The CARDIO-TTRansform study was really very interesting. And I think the outcome was driven by a number of key factors. I think one was the depth of TTR knockdown that was achieved in the study. I think the second was around the patient population that was enrolled in the study. And I think the third was around endpoint selection.
What I think was probably most surprising to people was actually the relatively poor TTR knockdown that was achieved by eplontersen in the study. I mean, less than 70% kind of mean TTR knockdown compared to what we've seen with AMVUTTRA in HELIOS-B of 81% mean TTR knockdown. And that 11% is actually a meaningful difference.
And to me, what I think is really quite interesting is that probably what we've seen is a little bit of a dose response set of studies, if you like, in this space for patients with TTR cardiomyopathy.
Clearly, better knockdown leading to better outcomes, less good knockdown leading to less good outcomes. I think the other aspect is going back to the sort of patient selection for the study that it's quite clear that when you're thinking about a stabilizer, the best opportunity for patients is to treat patients early. You're treating them with a stabilizer.
When the heart has already had a lot of deposition of amyloid, it's obviously going to take longer for that to resolve. And we saw this in HELIOS-B actually, where patients who are at an earlier stage of their disease saw better outcomes. And that's a really, really important point.
And actually, in CARDIO-TTRansform, there's a similar finding there as well. In the cohort of 900 patients who are [indiscernible] Stage 1, so earlier stage of their disease. Actually, eplontersen was able to deliver a positive result, which would have achieved statistically nominal significance. So I think there's something around patient selection that is really, really important.
And the last point is around the endpoint. I mean the HELIOS-B was an all-cause mortality endpoint. Now we know that TTR cardiomyopathy is a multisystem disease. It affects the heart, it affects other parts of their body. And people die from the broad aspects of the disease. If they have heart failure, they get pneumonia, they die, they're weak, they fall. And so if you're going to have an endpoint, I think it's helpful to have an endpoint that is able to measure all the aspects that impact mortality.
I think the other thing is having an event-driven endpoint is also helpful, so you can make sure you cue enough events and able to see a difference.
Yes. And I guess what feedback have you gotten more recently from physicians since the detailed results. Is there any impact on AMVUTTRA or not? And I guess we did our own doc call and the view was no impact. So just curious what you're hearing out there?
Yes. So I mean I'd just like to say a little bit HELIOS-B does study. I mean it was a landmark study, delivered very impactful results. And I think the other point to make is that silence is not all silencers.
You have ASOs and you have siRNAs. And what's been quite interesting actually when you've looked at a number of programs, AGT, APOC3, PCSK9 and now eplontersen is that actually siRNAs perform better than ASOs. And I think people are beginning to understand that, that different study, different drug, not surprising, you get a different result.
So I think as we speak to physicians and we've done some surveys, they're really not seeing huge implications to their daily practice based on the CARDIO-TTRansform study. But obviously, it's our job to make sure that we're able to get out there and educate physicians on the strength of what we have in the HELIOS-B study and the compelling profile for AMVUTTRA.
What about this dynamic between the stabilizers versus the silencers? Is that kind of the same view, like no real impact or change there?
Yes. I mean I think there are some that are trying to characterize the study as something that it wasn't designed to do. But in terms of just general practice, maybe the way I can answer it is we actually did a survey of cardiologists, general cardiologists that are caring for these patients in this category.
And we actually did it between the press release announcement of the failed trial and before ESC. So if you think about it, that was the moment of probably the highest uncertainty. And we did a survey and essentially ask does anything change, especially with regards to your current behavior and your perception of silencing?
And the short answer is overwhelmingly no. Now since we went to ESC, we now have so much more data. And I think the conclusions are generally what we see. It probably worked, silencing worked, but it matters how well you silence and we have a better product, and that came across, I think, very clearly at ESC.
Yes. Makes sense. Maybe you can talk about some of the OUS dynamics you're seeing and how that might play out this year?
We're thrilled that we're able to make AMVUTTRA available to patients around the world. I think the launch has gotten off to a great start in markets like Germany and Japan. We recently effected a commercialization agreement with B1 to make sure that we can work towards making AMVUTTRA available to patients in China.
Obviously, we need to get through the regulatory process first. And whilst these are all different geographies, and they have their different systems, the different pricing and reimbursement systems, different access considerations. I think one thing is clear that patients with TTR cardiomyopathy are not sufficiently diagnosed and not sufficiently treated.
And so there's a huge opportunity as we think about building this business, obviously, in the U.S., but also around the world to meet the needs of so many patients out there.
Yes. Makes sense. Maybe shifting a little bit related, but nucresiran, obviously, lots of questions around that and implications of CARDIO-TTRansform. You shared your views on the data. I guess, on this study, how are you thinking about the implications there...
Yes. That's a really good question. I think the first thing to say around nucresiran, and we're obviously evaluating nucresiran a study that's called TRITON-CM. It's a large cardiomyopathy study. Nucresiran has 95% TTR knockdown. That's the best of any program that's out there. And we think that's going to play through into improved outcomes.
So we definitely have a molecule that is incredibly potent. I think that's the first thing to say. I think the second is that, look, we've been developing medicines for patients with TTR amyloidosis for many, many years and have real insights from all the studies that we've got.
We've got patient level data from our HELIOS-B study. And that allowed us to be really thoughtful about the design of TRITON-CM. And we've actually built in a lot of the learnings that were then validated when we saw the data from CARDIO-TTRansform in terms of patient selection in terms of the endpoints.
And so we feel that we're in a really, really good place with respect to TRITON-CM. We're obviously continuing to enroll that study. Obviously, also very thoughtful about the fact that this is an incredibly important study for the company. And so we're going to spread the details as we always do, right? And we're going to think about whether there's anything that we need to do to modify the study, which really falls into 2 buckets.
One is thinking about the patients that we enroll and enriching for certain types of patients potentially, maybe increasing the size of the study, that's another option. And those are decisions that we would have to make pretty soon whilst we're still in this enrollment period. And obviously, if we make those decisions, we'd communicate that broadly.
The other approach might be to think about the analytical plan a little bit like we did with HELIOS-B. And that's a decision that we can make at any point in time over the duration of the study. It's probably something that we think about kind of later in the course of the study.
But I think it's really important to kind of just, I think, underscore that actually, the learning from CARDIO-TTRansform to a certain extent, has actually strengthened our conviction around the design of the TRITON cardiomyopathy study.
If you decide to make some fine-tuning to the study, I guess, when would that happen? And then I guess, related to that is, obviously, there's a lot of interest in probably the baseline characteristics because those are going to matter as we try and think about the probability here, I guess, when might you share those what's the thinking there?
So if we do anything different with enrollment, I mean, if you remember, I think it was earlier on this year, we announced that we were upsizing the study. We're adding another 500 patients to the study. And we announced that as soon as we made that decision.
So if we're making any changes to enrollment, that's something that we would communicate before the end of the year. But as I said, if we're refining the stat plan, we can do that at any point in time. So I wouldn't expect that we would be communicating anything on that front in the near term.
Increase in the confidence, is that about monotherapy effect? Is that combo effect? Is there some way to -- is there some limit on background path you can have to be successful? I know these...
So what -- I mean, it's important to just say what we're trying to achieve with the study was actually say effect a broad label for nucresiran, the way that we have done for AMVUTTRA. And therefore, it's going to be important that we study a range of patients and study both monotherapy and combination therapy. Really, the goal is to make sure that we deliver a successful study, which can then meet the needs of patients with TTR cardiomyopathy, whatever types of patients those are.
Yes. Another question that comes up for TTR cardiomyopathy is just the impact of generic tafamidis in 2031. And maybe you can just share the latest thinking there and the impact to your...
Yes. So we'd originally thought that generic tafamidis would become available in 2028. And now we understand it's more likely to be 2031. And actually, that's a pretty good thing for AMVUTTRA. It reduces the pricing pressure of having a generic come into the market sooner. And it allows us more time really to establish AMVUTTRA to continue to establish AMVUTTRA as the foundational therapy for patients with TTR cardiomyopathy.
So we think it's actually a good thing for us. The other thing is actually the timing juxtaposed is really nicely with nucresiran and the TRITON-CM study because we will be delivering data for the polyneuropathy TRITON-PN in 2028 and then for TRITON-CM around about 2030. So it actually all comes together rather nicely.
And maybe last question on TTR. I guess as you look sort of near term through the next couple of years, just the key drivers of growth to really push the frontline use up. Is it just helping find more patients more quickly? Is it more education around the profile? What are the key...
So I think if I think about -- I'll step back and then I'm sure John will add some color. But I think about, okay, what are the key drivers of the business over the next period. And you're absolutely right. I think the really important thing is to establish AMVUTTRA as first-line monotherapy and obviously doing that in a number of ways in terms of continued evidence generation, continued education of physicians, continued support around patient identification and diagnosis and helping patients get through the various care pathways so they can actually receive treatment. So that's really, really, really important.
I think the second area is around continuing to help grow the market. When you've got a market where 80% of patients are undiagnosed and untreated, I think it's a really important opportunity and obligation for us to continue to educate physicians and improve the diagnosis rates and improve the treatment rate. So investing in helping to grow the market is also very important.
I think the -- when we think about educating physicians, I think what we also need to do is to broaden the prescriber base. So I said, physicians who use AMVUTTRA prefer. We're currently addressing about 1/3 of the prescribers out there. And so there's a lot of runway. And so we're investing in broadening the prescriber base as well as obviously also deepening prescribing within physicians who are already prescribing AMVUTTRA.
And then you touched on markets outside the U.S. and we'd like to continue supporting patients who live outside the U.S. and so continued geographical expansion is going to be very important to us. And we spent a little bit of time also talking about nucresiran. I think AMVUTTRA is a very important medicine for Alnylam.
It actually is a medicine that's going to allow us to fund a very exciting pipeline that we're developing and build the company. So we really are aspiring to ensuring that we're leaders in the TTR space. And we like to leaders for a long time.
And so developing our third generation with nucresiran, as I said, much better, much 95% TTR knockdown is another important aspect as we think about the long-term opportunity for the TTR franchise and AMVUTTRA. JK, anything else?
I mean you covered all the levers, but just for color or commentary, what I'd say is this category is rapidly expanding. So that's patient volume, but it's also just the number of prescribers that are involved in the category. And that's why being able to expand the prescriber base is important. We're doing more. So we're actually -- we have more physician engagement with more people in the field, more investment.
And then the other investments to drive diagnosis, we're not doing this alone. We feel compelled as we aspire to be the leader to do more to drive diagnosis, but we're doing that in partnership with others. This AI is an AI provider is one example, the American Heart Association, et cetera. So those are partnerships we're building.
And Yvonne, you brought this up pipeline, which we got about 8 minutes left here. So maybe we can dig in there a little bit, and you've got a bunch of updates later this year, but maybe just high level, maybe just talk about pipeline and kind of what you think investors should focus on there.
Yes. No, I'm really excited about the progress of the pipeline. As I said, a number of important catalysts this year. So I'll start with the first, which is our Huntington's program. And I know I don't have to convince any of you here how much unmet need there is for patients with this disease. It's been described as being a combination of ALS and Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and there's really nothing out there for these patients.
And we have at Alnylam a program, which we believe has a really important mechanism of action where we're able to address not just the full men Huntington's gene, but also the exon 1 fragment, which is increasingly being implicated in the pathophysiology of the disease.
So we think we've got something in our hands that could be really impactful. And I think this has been supported by some of the data from uniQure natural history study, which showed the importance of actually having this exon 1 fragment.
And this is program. It's administered intrathecally. It's probably going to be a couple of times a year, we'll be getting Phase I data in October. So it really is imminent, and we're hoping that they will be able to demonstrate safety and tolerability. We'll be able to demonstrate -- we'll be able to understand PK/PD.
We'll be able to measure Huntington lowering through CSF. And so if this program is successful, we think we'll be able to move it very quickly into Phase III. I think there'll be a lot of support for trying to progress this medicine towards patients. It's something that we are kind of very excited about, and we hope to be able to move rapidly forward. And there'll be more information being presented at the EHD meeting in October, so just around the corner.
So I would ask you all to stay tuned. That's a really, really exciting program. Probably the second program to touch on is called ALN-6400, what we call our plasminogen program. It's for bleeding disorders. And really, it's got, again, a really interesting approach where we can stabilize clot and the potential here is to be able to stabilize clot and therefore, reduce bleeding without any thrombotic risk and there's some good genetics and biological evidence for this.
And the other kind of exciting thing about this program is the mechanism of action could apply across a range of different bleeding disorders. So we're starting with a study in patients with Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia, and I'll talk a little bit more about that.
But we can -- we're also then in a Phase II for patients with Von Willebrand Disease. So you can see how start off with indication and we start to kind of go after one indication after the other with bleeding disorders. So we have a Phase II ongoing in patients with HHT. And there, we're measuring numbers of bleeds in the patient, severity of bleeds.
These are patients actually that have incredibly severe nose bleeds, GI bleeds and require -- they're often anemic, they require transfusions. There's actually significant unmet medical need for these patients, which we hope to address with this particular program, and we'll be able to complete this Phase II study shortly.
And if we're able to move this program into Phase III, it's something that actually could also move very quickly. You don't need large outcome studies to measure bleeding. So we're pretty excited about this.
Can you just quickly touch on the bar for bleeding, like what's a meaningful decline in the bleeding rate or any particular bar you're looking for?
So we'll come back at that on that as we get the results. But clearly, we only want to progress a program that's going to have a significant benefit to these patients. So it's not just the numbers of bleeds, but it's also the fact that these patients are anemic.
They often require transfusion. So you also have to think about are you able to reduce the hematological support that these patients require.
Got you. Maybe we just keep going with the pipeline, just the obesity program and your strategy there and when we might see some data.
Yes. So a lot of people are excited about obesity. There's a lot going on. We're hoping to be able to demonstrate that we're able to deliver our siRNAs into adipose tissues. That will be a first for us. So that in itself will be a significant milestone. And when we think about what the opportunities are in obesity, really thinking about beyond incretins. How can you think about better quality weight loss.
And as we think about our strategy, it will be thinking about the monotherapy. It will be thinking about in combination with other siRNAs, we'll be thinking about in combination with incretins as well.
So we're fortunate as Alnylam that we're able to think about how we can progress our pipeline in creative ways to meet the emerging needs of patients with obesity. And again, we'll be getting sort of proof-of-concept data later on this year. So we're eagerly looking forward to that.
Yes. Great. And maybe we keep going with the pipeline. So zilebesiran, maybe just give us a quick background there. And I think you're going to have a webinar later this week.
Yes. No, the webinar is coming up, so I'd encourage you all to tune in and said, look, I think zilebesiran really has the potential to transform how hypertension is treated because hypertension is not just about lowering blood pressure. It's about the durability of lowering blood pressure, that continuous control.
And one of the other issues with patients who are receiving treatment for hypertension is around adherence. They just don't take their tablets. And here, we can conceive of infrequent dosing of subcutaneous [ ilebutiran ] to really maintain continuous control for these patients, restore nighttime dipping, reduce variability.
And we believe that all of this will lead to better outcomes for patients. So it's not just about blood pressure lowering. It's about improving outcomes for patients. So we have a large outcome study ongoing where we hope to be able to demonstrate this over the next few years.
Great. Maybe I can ask on another hot topic, the AI topic. John, you mentioned some ways you're using it in diagnosis, but any other ways across the company are using it to accelerate development or things like that?
Well, we're using AI broadly across the company as many organizations are to improve our efficiency, improve our productivity. Obviously, some of the approaches that John touched on, on the commercial side of our operations. We're also very excited that we signed an agreement with a company called Inceptive Nucleics who are helping us think about how we can combine their frontier models with all the data that we have with respect to sRNAs and actually see whether this could help us accelerate innovation and be able to move our incredibly already productive R&D engine even faster.
Yes. Okay. Great. It looks like we're just about out of time. So why don't we end it there. Yvonne and John, thanks so much. Appreciate your time.
A pleasure. Thank you so much.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Morgan Stanley 24th Annual Global Healthcare Conference
AMVUTTRA launch momentum, differentiation versus other silencers, and multiple pipeline catalysts framed the fireside chat; pricing/340B and TRITON‑CM design are watchpoints.
🎯 Key Message
- Takeaway: Alnylam stressed that AMVUTTRA’s rapid adoption (>$1B in a single quarter) validates its first‑line positioning and access strategy, while the company leans on a deep pipeline—nucresiran (95% TTR knockdown), Huntington’s, bleeding, obesity and hypertension programs—to sustain long‑term growth amid pricing and regulatory uncertainty.
💡 Strategic Highlights
- AMVUTTRA: Quarterly subcutaneous dosing, strong HELIOS‑B data and physician preference have driven early uptake and >50% share among prescribers who have tried it.
- Access: Most patients can obtain AMVUTTRA with $0 out‑of‑pocket and 90% live within 10 miles of access; company built alternate sites to mitigate potential 340B rule effects.
- Pipeline: Nucresiran (TRITON‑CM) is a priority with 95% knockdown; Huntington’s Phase I data in October and several mid‑stage readouts expected over the next 12–24 months.
🆕 New Information
- Updates: Management reiterated earlier guidance revision drivers (market mix shifting to ~80% first‑line), highlighted eplontersen’s <70% mean TTR knockdown vs AMVUTTRA’s ~81%, confirmed nucresiran’s 95% knockdown, and noted generic tafamidis timing moved toward 2031 (later than prior expectation).
❓ Analyst Q&A
- Pricing/340B: Management expects modest net‑price erosion over time; proposed 340B changes are unresolved and November is a likely rule timing, but Alnylam has site‑of‑care and list‑price options to preserve access.
- CARDIO‑TTRansform: Discussion centered on differences in TTR knockdown, patient selection and endpoints; management argues siRNA performance and dosing depth matter versus ASO competitors.
- TRITON‑CM design: Company may enrich enrollment, adjust size or refine statistical plans; any enrollment changes would be communicated before year‑end.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Implication: The fireside chat confirms strong commercial execution for AMVUTTRA and meaningful near‑term pipeline catalysts that can drive value, but investors should monitor pricing/340B outcomes, market mix normalization to more first‑line use, and TRITON‑CM design decisions as key risk/catalyst levers.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Wells Fargo 21st Annual Healthcare Conference
1. Question Answer
All right. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for our next session. My name is Derek Archila. I'm one of the senior biotech analysts here at Wells. With us today is Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. And from the company, we have John Kennedy, Head of Commercial; as well as Pushkal Garg, the Chief of R&D. So gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us and I look forward to the discussion here.
Thanks for having us.
Excellent. So maybe the first place to start here would be kind of the TTR revenue outlook for 2026. So John, during the quarter, we learned there were some things that maybe were not really reflected in the guidance and you kind of gave us a little bit of a reset. So I guess the question now becomes what's the confidence level in kind of the reset guidance? And ultimately, how should we be thinking about future growth, not only for 2026, but kind of beyond?
Yes. Thank you for that. So maybe I'll just start by characterizing launch, what we see when we look back and then what that means going forward, and we'll talk about the guidance along the way. So first and foremost, we're about 18 months into this launch for cardiomyopathy. So AMVUTTRA was already approved for polyneuropathy, hereditary polyneuropathy. We added cardiomyopathy in March of '25. So we're about 18 months in, and the launch has gone exceptionally well.
Just a single headline. If you think about the last quarter, we passed $1 billion quarter for the TTR franchise. So this is very, very strong. Now when we look back, there are several things that we were really focused on to make sure that this had the fundamentals in place for sustainable growth. And they're there. Generally speaking, the first area of focus for us has been access. That's both provider access, but also payer access and the access is very, very strong, generally unencumbered access to AMVUTTRA, particularly in first line with the majority of patients paying $0 in out-of-pocket cost. That has allowed us to focus on demand.
And now if we look at physician experience and demand, since the launch of the cardiomyopathy indication through the end of last quarter, we had -- we've seen more than 1,700 physicians have a first experience with AMVUTTRA. So there's tremendous uptake, especially in a rapidly growing category where more physicians are coming in. Now what we look for is what is that experience and a great indicator of that experience is if we look at those physicians that have experience, we have north of 50% share of new starts with those physicians.
So in other words, trial results in a favorable experience and preference for AMVUTTRA. So that's all very, very strong and encouraging. And of course, this isn't a category that has grown. It's grown for the last 6, 7 years. It will continue to grow when you think that the majority of patients, unfortunately, are still untreated. So those are all the fundamentals that we're very, very confident in and give us quite a bit of runway for opportunity moving ahead.
Now as it relates to the guidance, one of the things that we talked about was just the learning in terms of the contribution of the AMVUTTRA source of business. So to back up a little bit, there is a first-line segment and the second line. So first line are these newly diagnosed patients that are looking for that very first treatment choice. First line has, from the very beginning, been our strategic area of focus.
We want to establish AMVUTTRA as a first-line choice knowing that, again, the vast majority of patients in this category are untreated, they will come in and seek that first-line treatment choice. So that's -- long term, that's a significant part of the opportunity, and that has gone very well. There's a second component, which is second line.
What we've seen from real-world evidence data sources is that patients treated with stabilizer unfortunately continue to progress. There was one analysis that looked at more than 800 patients treated on stabilizer, mostly tafamidis. And what we saw was that within about a year on average, about half of those patients experienced cardiac worsening.
So these patients continue to progress, and they will be looking for another treatment choice. Now we are the first and only alternate mechanism of action in cardiomyopathy. And so we're a natural option for those patients. So going back to the guidance, what we saw early on the launch is we had many of these high-volume prescribers start using AMVUTTRA, which is a good thing.
And with those higher volume physicians, they had more of these patients that had been treated with a stabilizer for some period of time. And as you can imagine, many of those patients were progressing. So what we saw in the first several quarters of launch is those physicians move more of those patients to AMVUTTRA in the second-line opportunity, and that was a robust part of the opportunity. So early on, it was relatively balanced where our source of business is coming from that first line and the second line.
Now take a step back, if you look at the category at large, this is more of a first-line category. Now part of that is because there hadn't been another option for a long time, but switching behavior is a relatively new behavior. That will take some time to really form and unlock. And so when we look at the category, generally, about 80% of new treatment initiations are first-line treatment initiation. It's the minority, about 20% that are second-line.
So as you can see, when we started, we have more of a balanced contribution across both lines of therapy. But with those higher volume physicians that were earlier adopters, they moved more of those patients to AMVUTTRA. And so what we saw is that second-line inflow has normalized. So there's still robust inflow of second-line starts. It's still an opportunity, but it is normalized so that it's less of a contribution in terms of the AMVUTTRA source of business.
Now the good news is our volume has continued to grow. And so it just means that a greater proportion of our volume is now in first line, which strategically was the priority for us. So the guidance is to reflect this change where there's a normalized volume of second-line inflow. It is different than what we saw in the first several quarters.
And that was a learning for us. And so we had to adjust the guidance to reflect that normalized flow of second-line volume starts. And that's on us in terms of the guidance. But again, just the context is prior to us, there really wasn't a second-line market. And so that was the newest part of this category where we had to observe and just see how that would play out.
Got it. No, that's very helpful. So as we think about, again, first line is where you're seeing the majority of the new starts, kind of how you think about the split between community and centers of excellence for AMVUTTRA usage? And how much does kind of the 340B kind of incentive play a role there?
Yes. For -- what we're looking at for the initiations of AMVUTTRA, what we're seeing is it is still very balanced across the centers of excellence and the community. So just to step back, this is a category that is growing. It's growing very, very rapidly in terms of patient volume, in terms of Rx volume, but also in terms of physicians that are active in the category, meaning they're diagnosing and they're initiating treatment. So there's an expansion of the physician growth.
About half of that growth is coming from these more community centers as opposed to the centers of excellence. So we still have a robust business in the centers of excellence. We continue to see depth of penetration. That's a good thing. But in terms of the growth, we're also seeing quite a bit come from the community. Now again, we're seeing balanced utilization of AMVUTTRA. The reason for that is because AMVUTTRA is very widely accessible.
So I talked about at the beginning, access is a function of both provider and payer. On the provider side, if a community cardiologist chooses to engage in buy-and-bill, that's fine. That is a relatively well tried and easy experience. And by the way, we're not the only ones that are engaged in that space. Think of LEQVIO in the lipid-lowering category. There are more experiences that cardiologists are having engaging in buy-and-bill.
But if there's a physician that says, I don't want to get involved for some reason, that's okay, too, because we've established a very, very broad network of buy-and-bill alternate sites of care, such that about 90% of patients anywhere in the United States, about 90% of patients can receive AMVUTTRA within about 10 miles of their home, whether that's in the physician's office, in a site of care that's part of a large integrated network that the physician is part of or one of these clinics that is often down the street from where the patient lives.
Got it. So going back to kind of the first line. So I guess where do you think you guys can peak out or what's the aspirational share in that first line? And how much of the growth is really about share gains versus stabilizers versus just overall category growth?
Yes. Moving forward, what matters is both share and category growth, both, just to be there. So what we're seeing in terms of first line is very encouraging. So again, within the first couple of quarters in terms of share of new starts, we had surpassed one competitor that launched just before us, and we are challenging the 6 at the time, 6-year incumbent in the category for share of new patient starts.
And so we saw that within the first couple of quarters of launch, and we continue to work towards that ambition today. We've got a tremendous data set. Again, physician experience tends to be favorable and drive greater utilization. And then on top of it, what we haven't talked about is just the dosing experience where we are a quarterly physician-administered dose. That is part of the value proposition of the product, which contributes again to the patient and the physician experience.
So all of that allows us to compete aggressively for first-line choice. Let's also not forget that after CARDIO-TTRansform, presumably, there's one less competitor that we have to contemplate in the future. And then moving forward in terms of category growth, I think it's informative for me to look back before looking forward. So looking back, we have about now 7 years of category experience.
You can look at tafamidis volume as a proxy of category volume for the last several years. And what you see is for years, this was stable and robust growth in excess of about, I think, 40% volume growth year-over-year for the last several years. Looking forward, the majority of these patients continue to be untreated. So I would expect that you will continue to have robust growth in the patient inflow, especially with more voices in the market, driving greater awareness, more suspicion diagnosis. And we will continue to play our part to facilitate that. We can talk about it if helpful, but we have several initiatives, partnerships with others that are focused on driving even greater diagnosis and category growth also.
Got it. So maybe one of the things that post-ESC, post-CARDIO-TTRansform, a lot of us are trying to work out, is there going to be an impact to AMVUTTRA usage? And is there kind of a ceiling in that first line in terms of share? So I guess, like how do you think about the overall value prop for AMVUTTRA relative to stabilizers and kind of points to some of the differentiating data maybe that the doctors are really pulling and being like, hey, this is why I want to prescribe it first line.
Yes. I think first and foremost, in the aftermath of CARDIO-TTRansform, which is a competitor trial, one thing is true: Nothing has changed with regards to our data. So HELIOS-B is a tremendous data set. It has been part of what has driven the initial uptake and demand for AMVUTTRA. And so that continues to be true. What we saw in that was a very robust impact on cardiovascular outcomes, about 40% reduction in all-cause mortality over 4 years.
And by the way, this is on top of aggressive standard of care background treatments. And so that's remarkable in terms of what you expect to see in categories like this or in heart failure or in cardiology categories at large.
That is a really, really remarkable finding. And then on top of it, to have had the impact on functional capacity with this, again, quarterly physician-administered dose, which is not just a convenience thing. I'll go back to what we've seen in this category. We've seen in many categories, daily oral treatments as much as we'd like to believe patients are adherent and persistent. They're not.
What we see is after about a year, about 30% of patients on a daily oral treatment stopped taking their medicine. By the end of the next year, another 30%. So that is -- it's a very real dynamic that we see with daily oral treatment. So again, that's all part of the value proposition. Now what I've talked about is what we saw from the HELIOS-B primary results. But since then, we've also had additional analyses drawing from HELIOS-B, and we have other data generation initiatives that continue in the background.
Other things that we've seen is that AMVUTTRA appears to have very remarkable impact or the potential for impact on cardiac structure and function. And there are multiple ways to look at it, but we have some MRI data that has now not just been presented but published in peer-reviewed journal that showed that there is a very serious signal with the potential of showing an improvement, improvement versus baseline on some parameters of cardiac structure and function.
We also know that this disease affects multiple systems of the body. And what we've seen is that not only are we having an impact on the cardiovascular manifestations, but there are some signals that suggest extra cardiac manifestation impact. So to give you an example, we have a post-hoc safety analysis that suggests that about half of patients or there was a halving of the incidence of GI issues or manifestations. It all suggests that this is a very, very potent drug that is having a tremendous efficacy signal for these patients. So that matters quite a bit for sure.
Understood. I guess we were talking about the second line, smaller part of the AMVUTTRA business. But I guess what are the kind of the pushes and pulls on that business in terms of stabilizer use being used earlier, so longer duration versus maybe less complacency around physicians looking for progression?
Yes. I think there are multiple dynamics at play. For sure, as there are more voices in the market, there's better awareness, better understanding of the disease, we expect that diagnosis will happen more consistently and earlier, and that's a good thing. And in fact, we intend to continue to facilitate that.
But unfortunately, it's not like these patients are at the very earliest stages of manifestation, unfortunately. So these patients are still recognized later than they should. There are many pieces of the data you can look at to get a sense of how the market is behaving, but there is one analysis that was done by the National Amyloidosis Centre in the U.K. that looked at cohorts of patients over time. And it generally showed that, yes, diagnosis is, in fact, happening earlier.
But the majority of these patients are still Stage I, II in terms of NAC staging or just, I'll say, progressed in the disease. So there's still ample opportunity for us to help these patients. What we know from the HELIOS-B data set is the earlier you're intervening with AMVUTTRA, the better. That is clear, and we continue to communicate that. For patients that have started on the stabilizer, we've seen in real-world data sets that, unfortunately, those patients do continue to progress.
They will be looking for something else. And so we are the first and only product approved in cardiomyopathy that is in a different mechanism of action. And so whether it's an add-on or a switch, we are really well positioned for that. And I do think that with increased awareness, there is greater opportunity to identify those patients that could benefit from more aggressive or more intensive treatment options, whether -- again, whether that's a switch or add.
So that's all helpful. In terms of duration of time on treatment, again, the earlier you help patients, it is likely those patients will remain on treatment for longer. I think that's particularly helpful for us because we have quarterly HCP administered dosing. So whether that benefit accrues to the stabilizers, remains to be seen, but I would go back to what we've observed in this category and others, where, again, by the end of the first year, about 30% stopped taking their medicine that repeats again. So ample opportunity.
Understood. So we've talked a lot about the U.S., but maybe you can kind of give us a sense of how AMVUTTRA ramp in ex-U.S. And we had a little bit of lumpiness earlier this year with some pricing resets in some countries, but what should we kind of expect out of that business?
Yes. So for outside the United States, we're launching in several countries. Our goal is to bring AMVUTTRA to as many patients as we can, as fast as we can around the world. One of the things that you've heard us talk about in the earnings is that in Q1, we are expecting a reduction or a decline in the revenue, but then sequentially, that would improve over time. So just to give you a sense for the why.
One of the earlier countries we had launched in was Germany. It's a relatively higher volume country. And when I say higher volume, don't forget that we had approval for AMVUTTRA in the hereditary polyneuropathy before adding cardiomyopathy. Now outside the U.S., the pricing reimbursement system is different from country to country. But generally, and in a country like Germany, we have a negotiated price for cardiomyopathy.
That negotiated price for cardiomyopathy is lower than polyneuropathy. The reason for that is prevalence. Cardiomyopathy is about tenfold greater prevalence than polyneuropathy. And so what that means is the volume -- the legacy volume of polyneuropathy business has a correction as you reset the price for cardiomyopathy.
And so that results in a transition where in the first quarter, you have a reduction in your revenue, but then sequentially, the volume grows past that, and there's ample volume to grow. And so that's kind of the dynamics that we saw in the first quarter. And so what we have said is you saw that in Q1, but we expect quarter-over-quarter improvement in that ex U.S. contribution.
And then in absolute terms, the revenue growth for 2026 outside the U.S. will be very similar to the absolute revenue growth we saw outside the U.S. for 2025. But again, that's just a function of countries launching progressively throughout the course of the year. Many of them will have that kind of transitional adjustment at the beginning of the launch. And then because the cardiomyopathy volume is so much bigger, we'll continue to grow through that.
Got you. And then just a question that we get frequently is around kind of 340B and kind of the potential impact of some future legislation here. So maybe kind of talk through what you guys are thinking about and how things could be mitigated depending on that advances.
Yes. So in terms of the proposed rule, there has been a proposed rule. It remains to be seen what happens, if it happens and in what form. We just went through a comment period. So we haven't seen the conclusion of that. What I do know is that there are many voices that likely participate in the comment period that have some strong feelings about this, particularly on the provider side with regards to reimbursement rates.
So I think it remains to be seen what will play out. What I can tell you is that we have secured broad access for AMVUTTRA across sites of care. And if you look at utilization, we're seeing broad utilization across sites of care. And so we are very focused on maintaining that access, and we expect that there will demand. Again, what actually happens with this proposed rule, I think, remains to be seen.
And if something like that goes through, what happens in terms of provider behavior remains to be seen, but there is quite a bit of optionality on the provider behavior side, whether they participate, whether they go outside of 340B or we have alternate sites of care. So we have a broad network, broad access and broad utilization, again, across sites of care.
Got you. And we were talking earlier at the breakfast in terms of like we've had a lot of new developments with kind of more clarity around tafamidis generic, obviously, partners to CARDIO-TTRansform and all that stuff. So I guess, how do you kind of envision that both on kind of price mix and volume mix for AMVUTTRA in the future?
Yes. So what we're referring to is there have been a couple of events in the marketplace that I think lend a little bit more certainty. So number one, we saw that the tafamidis loss of exclusivity according to Pfizer, we now expect later in 2031. That does 2 things, in my opinion. Number one, it removes some of this pricing risk or pricing pressure in the midterm. And number two, it just gives us more of this time to continue to compete for first-line preference. So a net good thing.
The second event is CARDIO-TTRansform from Ionis and AstraZeneca, which unfortunately was a failed study. Again, I think that has 2 implications. One is that likely also removes some potential for pricing pressure in that midterm. That's a net good thing for us. And then presumably removes a competitor from the mix. So a net good thing on share. So I think if you were to just look at where we are today in terms of what we're capturing for new patient starts, you take more certainty in the midterm in terms of the pricing dynamics in a category that continues to grow, I think there's quite a bit of reason for optimism here.
Yes. I mean, I guess in terms of generic tafamidis, how much do you think that is either a headwind neutral or tailwind for the AMVUTTRA business? And kind of in light of CARDIO-Transform, kind of the push to potentially use combo. Is that still on the table? Or do you think that's kind of -- it will be more modest than maybe the original kind of assumptions?
One of the things that we've said really since launch is that until you have loss of exclusivity for tafamidis, we expected this category to be more of a monotherapy market. And generally, that's what we see. So we do see some combination treatment. There are physicians and there are also patients who are looking for the most intensive treatment regimen that they can have, just knowing that this is functional capacity at stake, not to mention, obviously, morbidity and mortality.
And so we do see combination therapy, but the majority of this market has been monotherapy. I can put that into context for you. So at the beginning, we were talking about this first line, second line. Most combination treatment tends to be in that second line. So again, it's about 80% of new starts in the category first line, then you have about 20% that are second line, some portion of that is combo. So that gives you kind of a sense. I expect that you'll continue to see some of that.
The reason for it is HELIOS-B. It's a tremendous study. And what that showed is that you had consistency of treatment effect with AMVUTTRA with or without background tafamidis. That's in the label. It's in the data set. So there's substantiation for those physicians and/or patients that pursue that. So I think it will persist. But the real unlocking event would likely be tafamidis generic. By that point, though, we expect that we'll have nucresiran. So another data set with another tremendous asset with a different dosing frequency that I think would make it a wonderful foundational treatment option.
Incredible segue. So maybe we can talk to TRITON with Pushkal here. So coming out of ESC and kind of CARDIO-TTRansform a lot of questions around kind of TRITON and what could be done around that trial or what needs to potentially be done to that trial, if anything, to make sure and ensure it's successful. So maybe just talk about kind of the key learnings from kind of the more detailed data set at ESC. What else you might want to know prior to making any sort of modifications that would help the probability of success for vutrisiran?
Yes. Thanks, Derek. So look, I think the ESC presentations around CARDIO-TTRansform were quite informative, right? I think a number of things that we think really point, unfortunately, to why the trial didn't succeed as anticipated. I think, one, probably the biggest surprise was the knockdown levels, right, that they saw 70% knockdown at a mean level with vutrisiran -- I mean, with vutrisiran, we're at 81%, 87% depending on mean and median.
So pretty sizable difference in terms of that knockdown. And I think you saw that really play out even if you look across the data, you saw benefits of that drug in monotherapy. And even when you look at across the endpoints, you saw some benefits in combination across a variety of endpoints, not the top line one, but a variety of other endpoints, suggesting there was really an example of basically a dose response effect, less knockdown, less effect, more knockdown, greater effect compared to HELIOS-B in the AMVUTTRA data set.
I think the second thing was patient selection. I think we've seen coming out of HELIOS-B as a learning and actually even earlier studies that with the silencing mechanism, when you're turning off production, you actually really want to get in upstream, you want to get in before patients accumulate a lot of irreversible damage to their heart, right? That's harder to change if you're turning off the spigot and production. It's not to say you can't change it. It just may take longer beyond what you can do in a short-term clinical trial.
And so we saw there again that the greatest benefits of that drug really occurred in the earliest patients. And the most noteworthy example of that was if you look at the NAC Stage 1, which is largely defined by BNP under 3000, we know BNP is probably the strongest predictive factor in heart failure. In 900 patients, they actually would have seen a stat sig effect. And that's including all the patients who are on combo, right, which was 60% on the onset and another pretty much 20%, 25% who dropped in.
And so in a 140-week trial in those earlier patient population, that's where they would have seen a stat sig effect. And then the third was around endpoint selection. And there, again, I think they focused on CV mortality and CV events. We've tended to focus on all-cause mortality because this is a systemic disease, and we think that captures the totality of what happens to a patient tends to be more sensitive.
So I think those were the kind of the key learnings coming out of CARDIO-TTRansform that really tended to point to why the study didn't succeed. And really said, look, not all silencers are created equal and ASO is different from an RNAi. But importantly, that as we designed TRITON-CM, these were actually learnings that we carried forward from HELIOS-B and we had incorporated.
So a, we've got a molecule with the deepest knockdown ever studied, nucresiran, median knockdown 95% gets everybody more or less to deep levels of knockdown. Two, we focused on the earlier patient population. We have compared to the eplontersen study, real caps on BNP, not only at the higher level, but even at intermediate levels within the study. And then we focused on endpoints that we think are most sensitive. And then lastly, we have an event-driven study as opposed to a fixed time study. So we think there's a lot of tailwinds.
And frankly, what we learned corroborated a lot of the design choices we made for TRITON-CM. You'll recall that we recently upsized the study early in the year from 1,250 to 1,750, recognizing as we had intended that we were getting an earlier patient population. This just increased the probability of getting more events, accruing events earlier. So -- so we feel like we're in a good position. But look, we just got the data this last weekend. Our teams are going through it. There was a lot there, and we're doing a lot of simulation work, et cetera, to think about if there's anything more that we need to do in terms of optimizing TRITON-CM. It's obviously a very important study.
Those probably fall into 2 main categories. One could be things that relate to enrollment, whether we enrich or further accrue more patients, et cetera, in certain segments. That's something if we decide to do, we have to do this year. And then the other would be something that could be more in the analytics category, endpoints, et cetera, like we did with HELIOS-B, that would happen further down the line after we've kind of accrued the patients and seen what their trajectory is over time.
I guess what's your confidence level based on kind of what you've already talked about in terms of stratifying those patients and BNP levels that these patients would be kind of earlier stage relative to CARDIO-TTRansform?
No, I think we feel quite confident that the way we've designed the study and what we're accruing, these are going to be milder patients or earlier patients than that in CARDIO-TTRansform. We already are -- and we even did this in HELIOS-B, right? If you compare the eplontersen study to HELIOS-B based on the way that we designed it and the caps we put in place, there were twice as many NYHA Class III patients in CARDIO-TTRansform.
There were twice as many NAC Stage II patients in CARDIO-TTRansform. The median BNP level was higher. So there was a number of things that really pushed them a little bit towards a more advanced population that we had purposely avoided in HELIOS-B, and we've further exploited those learnings in the way that we've designed TRITON.
Got it. And I think you alluded to this, but we also talked about this morning, but you don't really view this as like monotherapy versus combo. It's more about kind of the advanced patient population. So I guess if you were to look at the mix and make any changes, would that mean more of like changing those caps that you talked about? Or would it be more about looking for mono? Or what would be kind of the mix that you'd want to?
Yes. What I would say is there's a number of different things we can pull. Again, we want to develop the medicine ultimately to have a label that's going to be most supportive of what John does in terms of getting this medicine out to patients, right, and to the broadest mix of patients that we possibly can and where it's going to have the greatest benefit-risk for patients. As we said, we always think this drug should be used early as first line. That's been our objective with AMVUTTRA and with nucresiran, we're seeking a broad label, both as mono and combo.
There's a number of levers you can kind of pull. But again, we want to support the label that we're trying to get that we think is going to help patients. Mono/combo has been kind of an incessant focus. I get why based on what the top line release is, but I think it misses the forest for the trees a little bit that there are multiple other important levers that really help.
And that's, again, proper patient selection, high levels of knockdown. We put out some clinical trial simulation work that we've done that really showed that with high levels of knockdown, we expect to see benefit both as mono and as combo, which is what the biology would suggest very strongly and existing clinical trial data supports. So that's where we're focused.
So is it fair to say, regardless if you make changes this year to kind of like enrollment criteria or SAP design, which we find out later that you're going to basically -- you're not going to sacrifice a broad label, like that's like first and foremost.
We think it is important as we kind of think about where the field is going and how patient care is going to evolve. And so we're committed to showing the benefit of this therapy in both settings.
Very helpful. So maybe with the last couple of minutes here, it would be great to kind of talk beyond TTR and maybe talk about some of the pipeline. So near term, you're going to talk about some Huntington's disease data from one of the programs. I think that's coming out late October. So maybe talk about that and give us a little bit of context of like what would constitute a good update there?
Yes. I mean, look, I don't think we have to do a lot of educating about Huntington's disease, really incredibly devastating disease with no approved therapies been likened to having Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and ALS all at the same time. And we're excited about the molecule we brought forward.
It's an siRNA that's now built upon the platform that we've developed that really allows us to usually dose about twice a year. It's intrathecal dosing that actually has deep knockdown and broad biodistribution in the brain. And that's really important in this disease where you're really trying to get into the deeper brain structures like the caudate nucleus. We also have a unique targeting approach.
And so we're not only targeting mutant huntingtin, which has been tried before, but we're specifically targeting a segment of the gene that includes something called exon 1 that codes for a protein called HTT1a. And we know that, that small fragment is really critical in terms of the biology of this disease in terms of nucleating the tangles and that happen in Huntington's disease. And so very exciting approach.
I'll note that uniQure actually where they've shown some benefits compared to natural history is the one other approach that actually specifically targets exon 1. So that's in a Phase I study. We'll have some data out in October at EHDN -- and what we'll be looking for there is, a, what's the safety and tolerability; b, can we get to deep levels of knockdown. This will be single-dose data. I'll remind you that previously, Roche and Ionis had brought forward tominersen, which had about a 25% knockdown and had some tolerability issues in terms of NfL increases, ventricular enlargement, et cetera.
We think that's largely ASO related, but it will be important that we can hopefully get a well-tolerated level of deeper knockdown than that. And so we'd love to see 50% or greater. And so that's -- and then I think if we can get to that, then we think we'll be off -- be able to move this program quite rapidly. It's also encouraging to see that there may be some regulatory flexibility in the Huntington space as well. So all of that will stay tuned for, but we're excited.
Got you. And then maybe just quickly on 6400. So looking at development in a couple of bleeding disorders. So what should we kind of expect from the data later this year? And I guess, maybe sketch out for us a little bit about the opportunity in von Willebrand.
Yes. So ALN-6400 targets a protein called plasminogen, which is a liver-derived protein that's involved in fibrinolysis or clot breakdown. By silencing it, we can stabilize clots. So think of it like a Band-Aid. Beauty of the Band-Aid is it can be used across a variety of bleeding disorders. And two, we believe based on very strong genetic evidence from patients with plasminogen deficiency that it will not be associated with thrombosis. A lot of times, we worry about drugs that help with bleeding that they promote thrombosis. Here, we think we can dissociate those 2 phenomenons.
So very interesting program. We'll have later this year some Phase I data which will have evidence of knockdown and safety. And then second -- and then we'll also have data later this year in our first indication, which is hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, really devastating disease, affects about 70,000 patients in the United States. They are affected by telangiectasia, which is small arteriovenous malformations at the capillary level. They can affect the gut, really impact the nasal mucosa.
So these patients can have incessant bleeding hours at a time, several days out of the week. Half these patients are anemic, require blood transfusions. And so our hope is that we can actually start to reduce the bleeding in a prophylactic way for these patients, giving it several times a year to prevent bleeding. Our second -- and so we'll have data in HHT later this year. And then next year, we expect to bring forward -- we're bringing forward data in Von Willebrand's disease, which is more of a platelet type of disorder, again, sort of highlight the impact of this drug across a variety of bleeding disorders.
Got it. Well, I think we'll leave it there. Gentlemen, thank you so much for the conversation.
Thanks, Derek.
Thank you.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Wells Fargo 21st Annual Healthcare Conference
Alnylam highlighted a strong AMVUTTRA launch, explained a guidance reset tied to normalized second-line switches, and reiterated confidence in pipeline programs.
📊 Key Message
- Summary: AMVUTTRA traction is solid—access, physician uptake and quarterly dosing drive demand—but guidance was reset after early quarters showed an outsized second‑line switch contribution that has since normalized, shifting mix toward first‑line starts and steady long‑term growth.
🎯 Strategic Highlights
- Access: Broad payer/provider access with most patients facing $0 out‑of‑pocket and ~90% of US patients able to receive treatment within 10 miles via buy‑and‑bill or alternate sites.
- Differentiation: HELIOS‑B data (AMVUTTRA) shows large mortality and functional benefits and quarterly, physician‑administered dosing that improves adherence versus daily oral stabilizers.
- Pipeline focus: Nucresiran (TRITON) designed for deeper knockdown and earlier patients; Huntington's siRNA and ALN‑6400 (bleeding disorders) have near‑term readouts.
🔭 New Information
- Guidance driver: Company explicitly tied the guidance reset to normalization of second‑line switch volumes after an early surge from high‑volume adopters.
- Ex‑US nuance: Q1 revenue softness reflects price resets (e.g., Germany) when cardiomyopathy pricing replaced legacy polyneuropathy pricing; sequential recovery expected.
- Market dynamics: Tafamidis loss of exclusivity pushed to 2031 and CARDIO‑TTRansform failure reduce midterm pricing/competitive risk.
❓ Analyst Q&A
- Guidance confidence: Management is confident in the reset, pointing to durable first‑line uptake and continued volume growth despite normalized second‑line inflow.
- TRITON concerns: Key learnings from CARDIO‑TTRansform—lower knockdown and later‑stage patients—were used to design TRITON (nucresiran median knockdown ~95%); company may tweak enrollment or analysis to preserve label breadth.
- Policy & pricing: 340B rule outcome uncertain but broad site network mitigates access risk; ex‑US pricing transitions expected early in launches then volume‑driven growth.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Takeaway: AMVUTTRA shows strong underlying demand and defendable advantages, and the guidance reset reflects a one‑time mix normalization rather than loss of fundamentals; upcoming TRITON, Huntington and ALN‑6400 data are key catalysts while policy and country pricing remain watch‑points for investors.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Q2 2026 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Thank you for standing by. My name is Sprila and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Q2 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]
I would now like to turn the conference over to the company. You may begin.
Good morning. I'm Josh Brodsky, Vice President of Investor Relations Island. With me today are Yvonne Greenstreet, Chief Executive Officer; Jeff Poulton, Chief Financial Author; Tolga Tanguler, Chief Commercial Officer; and Pushkal Garg, Chief Research and Development Officer. For those of you participating in a conference call, the accompanying slides can be accessed by going to the Events section of the Investors page of our website investors.alnylam.com/events.
During today's call, as outlined on Slide 2, Yvonne will offer introductory remarks and provide some general context, Jeff will review our financials and guidance, Tolga will provide an update on our global commercial progress, and Pushkal will discuss our TTR franchise, our confidence in TRITON-CM and upcoming pipeline milestones before we open the call for your questions.
I would like to remind you that this call will contain remarks concerning Alnylam's future expectations, plans and prospects, which constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the safe harbor provision. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important risks and uncertainties, including those discussed under the heading Risk Factors in our most recent periodic report available on our website and on file with the SEC. We disclaim any obligation to update such statements.
And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Yvonne. Yvonne?
Thanks, Josh, and thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. During the second quarter, we demonstrated strong performance across all aspects of the business. Notably, it marks the first time and virtual revenues exceeded $1 billion in a single quarter, representing an annual run rate of more than $4 billion, just 15 months into the ATTR cardiomyopathy launch, a testament to both the commercial opportunity and Alnylam's execution. As I reflect on the launch, several insights reinforce our confidence in the durability of AMVUTRA growth over the years ahead.
First, this has been an impressive launch by industry benchmarks when looking across market share, access and revenue generation. Second, the fundamentals of our TTR business are strong, and they include a virtuous compelling clinical profile and label the strong access that we established at launch, which continues to improve and our robust and expanding provider network. Third, Patient demand for AMVUTRA continues to grow robustly, particularly in the first-line setting, which has been our focus as we aspire to market leadership. Given AMVUTRA's clinical differentiation and desirability as a foundational therapy for newly diagnosed patients. Tolga will discuss how we are now further investing in broadening our AMVUTRA prescriber base and supporting overall category growth, the latter of which have been accelerating.
Finally, our geographic expansion strategy continues to gain momentum. And today, we are pleased to announce our collaboration with Ben through which they will have exclusive commercialization and distribution rights for AMVUTRA in Mainland China account, subject to AMVUTRA receiving marketing authorization. Together with B1, we aim to help advance awareness and support diagnosis of ATTR amyloidosis and if approved, bring the strength of TTR silencing with AMVUTRA to patients in these underserved regions.
As Jeff will describe shortly, we are lowering our 2026 revenue guidance today to reflect a better understanding with hindsight of the first few quarters of our U.S. launch. Specifically, that early second-line demand growth in 2025 benefited significantly from pent-up demand for a new therapy that has since normalized. With that learning, and our strong 2026 second quarter performance. Our confidence in AMVUTRA's growth trajectory has never been stronger. First-line new patient starts and now responsible for about 80% factory growth in this accelerating market. And we believe we're making great progress in establishing AMVUTRA as a foundational therapy.
I will now turn to recent developments in the competitive landscape, specifically the negative outcome of the CARDIO-TTRansform study of eplontersen. We recognize investor interest in understanding potential implications of that failure for our probability of success and TRITON-CM, our Phase III cardiovascular outcomes trial of nucrisiran. Let me be clear. This outcome does not alter our conviction in the TRITON-CM study. And as Pushkal will share in greater detail, our strong confidence is grounded in the established clinical evidence for RNAi therapeutics in TTR and a track record of our clinical organization. At the same time, we have a variety of options at our disposal to potentially adapt the study and position it for optimal success. We will carefully review the full eplontersen data set when it becomes available. and adapt our study plan, if appropriate.
We have successfully navigated complex TTR development before and believe we are exceptionally well positioned to do so again with nucresiran. Additionally, in the quarter, we are pleased to announce the [indiscernible] strategic AI corporations across the enterprise, including with inceptive to expand the next frontier in the discovery of RNAi therapeutics. And the collaboration, we are pleased to announce today with a large health care system in California aimed at support early identification of ATTR cardiomyopathy in routine care. This builds on our previously announced partnerships with Viz.ai and Komodo Health.
Together, this cohesive AI strategy from discovery and evidence generation to disease identification, clinical practice and commercial execution reflects our long-term conviction that AR fundamentally reshape how medicines are discovered, developed and ultimately delivered to patients. Finally, we also continue to progress our deep line of investigational medicines, initiating Phase II trial of ALN-6400 in Von Willebrand's disease and a Phase II trial of mivelsiran in down syndrome associated Alzheimer's disease, and we look forward to a series of clinical data readouts in the back half of this year, including presentation of initial Phase I results of ALN-HTT02 in patients with Huntington's disease at EHDN in October. All of this progress builds our momentum towards accelerating innovation, scaling our impact as we look to deliver our 5-year vision on line in 2030.
And our strategy is anchored around 3 pillars. The first pillar is to establish global leadership in TTR while continuing to build a doable franchise. The momentum we have built with ATTR cardiomyopathy dates along with recent developments in the competitive landscape, including the CARDIO-TTRansform Phase III top line results and in laying expected U.S. generic entry for tafamidis until mid-2031, further reinforce the strength of our position and the significant opportunity ahead to establish AMVUTRA as a foundational therapy and realize our TTR leadership ambitions.
The second pillar is growing through sustainable innovation where we aim to deliver therapy but not only slow the progression of disease, could prevent, halt or reverse it. And the third pillar is scaling with discipline and agility to enable durable, profitable growth. Alnylam 2030 represents our commitment to becoming the leading science driven fully integrated global biopharmaceutical company and to maximize the full potential of RNA therapeutics for patients.
With that, let me now turn the call over to Jeff for a review of our second quarter financial results and 2026 guidance. Jeff?
Thanks, Yvonne, and good morning, everyone. This morning, I'll be presenting the summary of Alnylam's second quarter 2026 financial results and discussing updates to our full year guidance. Let's begin with a summary of our P&L results for the second quarter. Total net product revenues were approximately $1.2 billion, representing 74% growth versus Q2 last year, driven by the continued uptake of AMVUTRA and ATTR cardiomyopathy.
Second quarter of 2026 marks the first time we achieved more than $1 billion of TTR revenue. These results reflect a substantial improvement in quarter-on-quarter growth compared with growth in Q1 this year consistent with the phasing expectations we discussed on our year-end and Q1 earnings calls earlier this year. Tolga will share more details on our TTR performance in the quarter. In Q2, collaboration revenue was $47 million or a 23% decrease compared with the same period last year due to lower revenue recognized from our Regeneron collaboration, partially offset by increased revenue from our Roche collaboration, driven by higher reimbursable development activities related to the ZENITH Phase III clinical trial of zilebesiran.
Royalty revenue for the second quarter increased 79% to $72 million, driven by higher LEQVIO sales by Novartis. Gross margin on product sales was 75% or 4% lower than Q2 last year, the decrease in margin was primarily driven by increased royalties on AMVUTRA as higher revenues in 2026 resulted in an increase in the average royalty rate payable to Sanofi. Our non-GAAP R&D expenses of $377 million increased 38% compared to last year, primarily driven by costs associated with our 3 ongoing Phase III clinical studies including the ZENITH Phase III cardiovascular outcomes trial for zilebesiran in the TRITON-CM and PN studies for nucrisiran.
Beyond the pivotal studies, we also continue to increase investment to support important programs for bleeding disorders Huntington's disease and CAA. Non-GAAP SG&A expenses of $297 million increased 14% compared to last year driven primarily by investments in support of the AMVUTRA ATTR cardiomyopathy launch in the U.S. and in key international markets. We achieved non-GAAP operating income of $318 million more than triple the amount we achieved last year, driven primarily by the strong top line results they have previously highlighted. Finally, we ended the second quarter with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $3.3 billion compared with $2.9 billion as of year-end 2025. The primary driver of the increase in cash year-to-date is our strong operating performance.
Now turning to our full year 2026 guidance. As Yvonne noted, we are revising our total net product revenue guidance to $4.7 billion to $5.1 billion, driven fully by an update of our TTR revenue guidance to $4.2 billion to $4.5 billion, representing a $200 million reduction from our original TTR guidance at the midpoint and still reflects a robust 75% growth year-over-year. Guiding the market's expectations appropriately is important, and we didn't get it right with our original guidance. We own that. Revised guidance we are sharing today reflect a better understanding of the evolution of second-line demand as our launch has progressed.
Let me provide some additional color on the basis for this revision. Overall, the AMVUTRA cardiomyopathy launch continues to perform ahead of analogs. And importantly, we are pleased with uptake in the first-line portion of the market which has been and remains the primary focus of our commercial efforts given the importance of this segment to driving long-term growth. When AMVUTRA was launched April 2025, the compelling HELIOS-B data and our team's success in establishing access enabled physicians to rapidly transition existing patients who are progressing on stabilizers on AMVUTRA. As a result, second-line demand volumes remained consistently robust throughout 2025, and which informed our original 2026 guidance. However, as the launch progressed into 2026 and with the benefit of hindsight, it is now clear that a green understood proportion of early second line volume growth was driven by pent-up demand from patients who are waiting for a new treatment option.
Consistent with the trend we highlighted in our Q1 2026 earnings call, growth in second line volumes began to moderate in early 2026 to what we now recognize as a normalized level. This normalization of second-line demand is the driver of the $200 million reduction in TTR guidance that we are announcing today. Tolga will share more perspective in just a few moments on our confidence in future TTR growth, which is grounded in 3 key elements: the strength of our current market fundamentals, positive impact we expect from new investments we're making based on early launch learnings and lastly, the favorable competitive developments that Yvonne mentioned in her opening remarks.
Now back to update on our guidance. We are also updating our guidance for collaboration and royalty revenues to a revised range of $575 million to $625 million, representing a $150 million increase at the midpoint of the range driven primarily by strong performance of LEQVIO and the resulting royalties from Novartis as well as higher cost reimbursement from Roche favorably impacting collaboration revenue driven by the pace of enrollment in our ZENITH Phase III study with zilebesiran. The remainder of our non-GAAP financial guidance remains unchanged.
Let me now turn it over to Tolga to provide more color on our commercial performance in the second quarter. Tolga?
Thanks, Jeff, and good morning. I'm pleased to share our continued progress in bringing Alnylam's therapies to patients globally. AMVUTRA is delivering a category-defining ATTR-CM launch and is on track towards delivering on our Alnylam 2030 ambitions. As Yvonne and Jeff mentioned, we have gained valuable insights as the launch has progressed. These learnings have sharpened our understanding of demand dynamics, while also reinforcing our confidence in the fundamental drivers of sustainable growth. .
Overall, we remain highly confident in our path to achieving TTR leadership. The momentum of the business, coupled with an increasingly favorable competitive landscape reinforce our conviction in achieving our long-term ambitions. Q2 marked another quarter of strong commercial execution and growth. Specifically, we delivered $1.17 billion in combined net product revenues, up 74% year-over-year and 13% over Q1 2026. In just 5 quarters since our CM launch, we have generated over $4 billion in total revenue, reflecting both a strong base and a clear growth trajectory. Our rare disease portfolio also continues to deliver meaningful impact for patients and consistent performance for our business. In Q2, we generated $142 million in rare disease net revenue, up 11% year-over-year.
Turning to our TTR franchise. Global TTR net revenues reached $1.03 billion in the second quarter, increasing 13% versus Q1 at 89% year-over-year, reflecting the continued strength of the launch and the robust execution of our global teams. In the U.S., TTR revenues increased 15% versus Q1 and 114% year-over-year, reflecting robust underlying demand with reported revenue partially held back by changes in inventory days on hand during Q2. Access remained broad, pull-through was strong and adherence continue to exceed 90%.
Outside the U.S., TTR revenues increased 7% versus Q1 and 31% year-over-year. Continued ATTR-CM uptake in Japan, the U.K. and Germany, along with strong polyneuropathy performance across our international markets drove Q2 growth despite pricing headwinds related to ongoing CM matches in several countries. Double clicking on our Q2 TTR performance in the U.S. Underlying demand was exceptionally strong, increasing by $129 million in the quarter, more than doubling the demand growth achieving in Q1. A portion of that demand was offset by inventory dynamics, which reduced reported growth by $21 million and to a lesser extent by the continued and anticipated modest reduction in net price.
As a reminder, our Q1 U.S. TTR growth was more modest and was impacted by several sea phasing dynamics, and we are, therefore, pleased by the robust reacceleration demand in Q2 and the continued strength of the business. Our ultra differentiated clinical profile underpins our confidence in the long-term growth opportunity. We believe that ultra stands apart as a first-line choice on attributes that matter physicians and patients. It is the first and only product approved in the U.S. for both ATTR-CM and hereditary ATTR PN. It works upstream at the source, delivering rapid, deep and sustained knockdown of the disease-causing protein. In the pivotal HELIOS-B study, AMVUTRA met 10 out of 10 endpoints and demonstrated robust treatment effects in the primary endpoint of all-cause mortality and recurrent CV events and secondary endpoints of function capacity and health-related quality of life. Across all of these end points consistent treatment effect with or without background stabilizers were observed, combined with the convenience of once quarterly health care provided administration and real-world data that is greater than 90% adherence, we believe AMVUTRA is uniquely positioned to address the needs of growing ATTR-CM patient population.
The first 5 quarters of launch have provided valuable insights that are informing where we increase investment and how we position the business for its next phase of growth. During the initial quarters following approval, many of our high-volume early adopters transitioned a substantial number of stabilizer treated progress in patients to AMVUTRA, while those transitions continue, we are now seeing that portion of demand volume growth normalized towards the more sustainable underlying rate, and we continue to capture leadership share of second-line starts. Today, approximately 80% of new treatment initiations are first-line starts. Establishing AMVUTRA as first-line treatment choice has been our priority since launch, and we continue to strengthen our competitive position. What's more? While our strategy has never dependent on competitive outcomes, 2 favorable developments in the external landscape have cleared a path for us to be even more competitive in the first-line setting.
First, we now anticipate tafamidis U.S. loss of exclusivity in 2031. AMVUTRA is already challenging the 7-year incumbent for leadership share of new patient starts, and we see a significant opportunity to continue strengthening that position years ahead of generalization of the stabilizer class. Second, based on the CARDIO-TTRansform study top line results, we now anticipate one fewer branded ATTR-CM competitor in both the first line and stabilizer progressive segments. Finally, category growth continues to accelerate at our competitive first-line share, coupled with this clear competitive path to greater first-line penetration aligns well with where we see the largest opportunity. With an estimated 80% of patients still untreated and additional physicians and health systems initiating treatment of ATTR we expect the robust growth in first-line starts to continue. And we're helping to drive that category growth. More specifically, we're accelerating our investments in diagnosis enabling initiatives, investments to identify patients earlier to expand the treatable population and ultimately, to improve patient outcomes.
Taken together, these insights provide great confidence in our ability to expand leadership across both ATTR-CM and ATTR PN and delivered on our 2030 ambitions of TTR leadership and a 25% revenue CAGR during the period. As we shared today, our differentiated profile has translated into exceptional launch momentum and that experience has sharpened our understanding of what will drive the next phase of growth. First, after 5 quarters in the market, Auto's compelling profile and our focused efforts have driven broad coverage and efficient patient access with no meaningful reimbursement headwinds.
We believe this strong access foundation will continue to support physician confidence and patient adoption and as we expand the franchise. Second, we continue to deepen adoption among physicians who have already incorporated AMVUTRA into their practice. Among prescribers using our AMVUTRA. It now represents more than 50% of new patient starts, underscoring the strong physician preference that develops with experience. And from ATTR-CM launch through the end of Q2 we have added over 1,700 new prescribers. Third, and perhaps most importantly, we have significant opportunity to expand the breadth of prescribers who have experience with AMVUTRA, which we estimated about 1/3 of the growing pool of TTR prescribers. While we know that experience drives preference. There are many more physicians, including many who are new to the category, who have not yet prescribed AMVUTRA.
To capture that opportunity, we are intensifying our focus and increasing our investment in customer-facing activities to expand the breadth of prescribing. We are already seeing early progress around these efforts with accelerated growth in new AMVUTRA prescribers during the second quarter. We believe we are in the early stages of that expansion opportunity. While we're still in the -- while we're still early in the commercialization journey, we believe AMVUTRA is well positioned to capture the significant opportunity ahead as we bring this differentiated therapy to more patients living with ATTR-CM.
With that, I will now turn it over to Pushkal.
Thank you, Tolga, and good morning, everyone. As Tolga just highlighted, we believe AMVUTRA has a remarkable clinical profile that supports it being the first line treatment of choice for patients with ATTR cardiomyopathy. These key attributes are highlighted here with data from the landmark HELIOS-B screen. First and foremost, we've seen substantial benefits with garden proving clinical outcomes, both all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events with reductions of nearly 40% over 48 months across these 2 endpoints.
Second, the treatment effects are largest when we intervene early. You can see that in the forest plot on the bottom left where patients with lower BNP, greater walking ability and younger age have had even greater reductions in the composite endpoint 47%, 42% and 45%, respectively. And importantly, in data recently presented at ESC Heart failure and shown on the lower right quadrant, we see that the treatment effect is preserved, irrespective of background medications in TTR stabilizers. These attributes, along with the quarterly dosing that supports adherence in our view, represents an ideal profile for first-line agent for patients with ATTR cardiomyopathy.
Now the strength of these HELIOS-B results, along with our many learnings from our deep experience in TTR amyloidosis provide us with stance conviction in the value of nucresiran, our next-generation investigational RNAi TTR silencer, which we believe has the potential for even greater improved efficacy by a greater knockdown over 95% with just 2 doses per year. As you're aware, we continue to advance nucresiran in the TRITON Phase III program. TRITON-CM is a randomized double-blind, event-driven out study of nucresiran versus placebo. We announced last quarter that we utilized a prespecified option in our product while expanding enrollment by about -- by approximately 500 patients to 1,715 total, further mitigating the potential risk of low event rates while maintaining or potentially even accelerating time lines for this important study.
Now given recent competitor data and given that many patients in TRITON-CM will be on a background stabilizer, we understand that there have been many questions raised about the feasibility of delivering positive results from this clinical trial. While we still have more to learn about the eplontersen results, we believe they're likely attributable to a combination of molecule and study-specific issues. And as we compare what we know about nucresiran with what's been reported about eplontersen, I want to assure you that we remain highly confident in nucresiran and TRITON-CM.
I'll explain more in a moment, but first, let me share what we'll be looking for in the upcoming data presentations of the CARDIO-TTRansform results to better understand the reasons why the study did not meet its primary endpoint. First, we'll be interested to learn more about the population and baseline characteristics of the CARDIO-TTRansform study, particularly in the 2 key subgroups of monotherapy and in the patients on background stabilizers. As I noted, in HELIOS-B, we saw the treatment effects with AMVUTRA were greatest in early patients. And so a drug signal may be obscured if many advanced patients were enrolled. We already know from published data that the cardio transform study enrolled 17% NYHA Class III patients, nearly double that in HELIOS-B. Patients with higher NAC stage in patients with higher BNPs.
Importantly, as I'll explain further in a moment, we believe deep rapid knockdown of TTR is critical to improving outcomes in ATTR cardiomyopathy. Graphs in the primary manuscript for the eplontersen-PN study indicated it took longer to get to peak knockdown than AMVUTRA, but the depth and variability of knockdown are also important. So we'll be looking for those details. Safety will be given what we know about ASOs in the past and the frailty of the ATTR cardiomyopathy population. The patients stay on drug and were there any competing risks that impact the study outcomes. We also want to look at study execution and completeness of follow-up.
And finally, we'll want to take a much deeper look at the outcomes data. For example, how do the individual components are primary endpoint, CV mortality and CV events look. And what about all-cause mortality, which is part of our primary endpoint? How did these accrue over time and do the results vary in particular subgroups, particularly by disease severity? Bottom line is there are a lot of details, not yet known about failure of CARDIO-TTRansform. However, we are in an ideal position to learn from it, with enrollment ongoing and a projected launch for nucresiran in 2030 in for ATTR cardiomyopathy. We have plenty of time to digest this information, thoroughly consider our options and implement appropriate changes to TRITON-CM, assuming any are even warranted.
Let me turn now to why we remain confident in TRITON-CM following the CARDIO-TTRansform top line release. The reasons come down to 3 key factors: the specific attributes of our molecule and nucresiran, key design elements of the TRITON-CM study and the track record of our team here at Alnylam. Starting with the molecule. First, RNAi therapeutics are fundamentally different than antisense oligonucleotides. In our hands, our NII has been able to deliver rapid, deep and durable TTR knockdown, which we believe has implications on treating the course of disease. There are now several recent examples of SOs and RNAi silencing the same genetic target with very different profiles. We've also seen that the safety profiles of these approaches differ as well.
Second, nucresiran's depth of TTR knockdown is expected to be best in mass based on preliminary Phase I results showing over 95% TTR knockdown with much tighter interpatient variability. I'll explain why we believe that will result in strong efficacy in a moment. And finally, we have data from 2 prior studies, evaluating RNAi in ATTR cardiopathy patients, APOLLO-B and HELIOS-B both of which generated get us supporting a combination benefit. You've seen the HELIOS-B data in label, which shows a clear benefit of RNAi-mediated TTR silencing in a population that included heavy stabilizer use and consistent effects in combination in monotherapy. But as I'll show you in a moment, we saw the same effect with patisiran as well.
Moving to the study. TRITON-CM, now with 1,750 patients will be the largest study conducted in ATTR-CM, which will allow us to accrue more outcome events. And further to that point, we designed TRITON-CM as an event-driven study. Given the evolving treatment landscape, patients with somewhat milder disease on baseline on average and other dynamics we determined that a time-based primary endpoint was not ideal. Instead, we'll continue the study until we have enough endpoint events to ensure sufficient study power. Third, we've used our insights to define entry criteria that enrich for patients were most likely to benefit based on our prior learnings. And finally, we have an outstanding experienced team here at Alnylam. We've been focused on TTR drug development for well over 15 years, delivering 2 approved products, we've amassed tremendous experience across study design, execution and analysis to maximize the probability of success of a trial in this area. Part of this experience in history of conducting TTR trials is our vast database of deep patient level insights that we can leverage to optimize study design and conduct.
And to that last point, we have a track record of meticulous execution to ensure study success. This was more recently exemplified by how we optimize the endpoint structure and analytic plan for HELIOS-B to deliver remarkable results, resulting in a strong label that Tolga highlighted earlier. Before I move on, I'd like to underscore a few of the points I just made by sharing some clinical data that support the additive benefits of RNAi media silencing on top of a stabilizer. As you'll recall, the HELIOS-B study demonstrated an approximately 41% reduction in the risk of all causality up to 42 months when AMVUTRA was given to patients on a stabilized or at baseline, highlighting both the residual unmet need in these stabilizer treated patients as well as the additive benefit of vutrisiran.
But what you may not know is that we saw a nearly identical effect in APOLLO-B. As shown here, with just 24 months of follow-up in a comparable population of that study, we saw an estimated 44% reduction in all-cause mortality. Hence, we have data from 2 different molecules in 2 different studies showing comparable improvements in outcomes, which provided the strongest evidence of a combo effect. We believe these clinical data results from the knock-down profile of these 2 medicines. There are many ways to look at TTR knockdown, but what we believe matters is the speed and depth of buck down and particularly getting as many patients as possible to deep knockdown. Here, we show TTR knockdown from our polyneuropathy studies, which had the richest sampling of TTR levels. Both show median knockdown of approximately 90% of study state.
Now we don't know exactly what level of knockdown is critical for efficacy in cardiomyopathy but we have robust data in hereditary ATTR, where we have more sensitive endpoints that suggest on a population basis, achieving 80% knockdown or greater is associated with halting of polyneuropathy. And based on our depth, speed and variability of knockdown, the large majority of patients, about 82% to 84% of vutrisiran treated patients reach that threshold at steady state. So how does this compare to other molecules? Here, we plotted the same data as on the prior slide for vutrisiran, now shown as bar graphs. You see 91% median knockdown with about 82% of patients achieving that 80% threshold of deep knockdown.
So how does that compare to the data reported for eplontersen? Our team used published data from the eplontersen TN study, which showed a median knockdown of 84% at steady state as well available data on variability to model the expected proportion of patients who will reach that same 80% knockdown threshold. Our model estimates that only about 67% of eplon-treated patients would reach that same level of knockdown or said another way, 1/3 of patients may not reach the threshold to knockdown we've seen to be associated with strong efficacy, nearly double that calculated for vutrisiran. These are estimates and should be interpreted with appropriate caution that they highlight that the TTR knockdown data in CARDIO-TTRansform will be critical to review an insufficient knockdown is one plausible contributor to the fail of that study.
We ran same modeling exercise for nucresiran using the same dose and regimen that we are using in the TRITON-CM and PN studies. And the good news is that by these same metrics, nucresiran has the potential to be even better than vutrisiran's high mark. With median knockdown of 95% in low variability over 99% of patients, truth nucresiran are expected to surpass the deep knockdown threshold. So in sum, we don't believe that the top line results shared a few weeks ago negate the hypothesis and rationale of using a silencer for ATTR-CM patients who are already on a stabilizer, more likely as we -- they may demonstrate that the type and depth of silencing along with aspects of the study design are what really matter.
With that, I'd like to remind you that we're progressing a broad pipeline of medicines beyond TTR with over 25 clinical programs multiple therapeutic areas across rare specialty and prevalent indications. This robust pipeline represents a tremendous opportunity to improve patient health and create value in the years ahead. To that end, we look forward to a lot of pipeline momentum in the next few years. This year, in 2026, we continue to execute on our 3 ongoing pivotal studies, including 2 cardiovascular outcomes trial. We also anticipate 4 key data readouts in the second half, which I'll outline on the next slide. And looking ahead, we anticipate many more data readouts and pivotal trial starts in '27 and '28.
Additionally, in 2028, we anticipate the launch of nucresiran in hATTR polyneuropathy assuming positive Phase III data and regulatory approval. And of course, we'll continue to build the pipeline through the filing of 3 to 4 new INDs each year as we scale to meet our Alnylam 2030 ambitions. Coming back to '26 and our pipeline goals for the remainder of the year, we're looking forward to 4 important data readouts from 3 key programs. For ALN-6400, we plan to share healthy volunteer data from the ongoing Phase I study as well as initial results from the Phase II study in patients with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia. We also expect to initiate Phase I data from both ALN-HD202, our Huntington's disease program and ALN-2232 in development for obesity and weight management.
With that, let me turn it back to Josh to coordinate our Q&A session. Josh?
Thank you, Pushkal. Operator, we'll now open the call for questions. [Operator Instructions]
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Paul Matteis with Stifel.
2. Question Answer
Great. I appreciate it. I wanted to just talk about like the change in guidance. By our math, under the new guide, you're growing around 50-ish percent at the midpoint in the second half of this year. And for 2030, I think you still guided to this 25% CAGR given this drop off versus your original expectations and when you gave this one-term guidance, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the next sort of 12- to 24-month outlook and your confidence that you can keep the growth rate on track likely above that 25% number for a while and still meet your long-term goals?
Thanks for the question. Clearly, we're not pleased to be lowering guidance, as Jeff said, we own it. But I think it's really important to emphasize that we believe that the fundamentals driving our opportunity a really strong, particularly market growth in our first-line momentum. And it's difficult to know every single factor when you kick off a launch from the get-go. But we're very pleased with the outlook that we have in front of us. both in the near future, but also in the longer term and reaching our 2030 goals. Jeff, do you want to add some comments?
I mean I'll just kind on the second half of '26 and what the revised guidance implies and then maybe Tolga would like to make some comments on longer-term confidence in the Alnylam 23rd guidance. Paul, the revised guidance that we've given of $4.2 billion to $4.5 billion in terms of the midpoint of that, just relative to the growth that we just put up in the second quarter, the midpoint to achieve the midpoint, we would need to deliver growth in Q3 and Q4 that's consistent with what we just put up in Q2. And I think we do have confidence in that given some of the things that Tolga talked about, particularly strength in the first-line part of the market in terms of demand we saw in the quarter in the U.S. But Tolga, any more comments on the confidence in the longer term?
Yes. Maybe I'll combine both Yvonne and Jeff's point, which is, first and foremost, we are competing in a in a highly untapped market, 80% of patients remain untreated. And within that category, in a short [ 15 ] months, we've already been able to actually build a very strong base for our business. And what's exciting about that, frankly, to me is while we're obviously normalizing our second-line new business, our first-time business is really rapidly replacing that. And if you think about the fact that 80% in this category comes in as new patients as first line, we really like how we're positioned with the existing prescriber bases. And as I highlighted in my remarks, one of the areas where we still need to do some work, which I believe we'll be able to do is continue to expand our prescriber bases. And that's where we're really investing our efforts, and we've already done that. So given matching that with actually the access that we've been able to secure and good achievance rates, our ability to demonstrate 25% CAGR growth year-over-year is definitely within our reach.
And if I can add, we're actually even more confident now with the results of the CARDIO-TTRansform study. I mean there's likely to be one less branded competitor in the market. And Pushkal structured all the reasons why our confidence in nucre and TRITON-CM is on diminished. So I think if anything, actually, we're sort of more confident about our future outlook given these developments.
Next question please. It's from Salveen.
This is Tommie on for Salveen. Curious on if you're seeing a slower rate of second-line patients TAF progressors per year, given trends in earlier diagnosis and potentially patients staying on TAF for longer. And also, if you could maybe comment on how you expect the timing for your diagnosis and awareness efforts to start playing a key role in first line capture.
That's a great question, both for Tolga.
Yes. So it's a good question around the early diagnosis. Frankly, the when we started just like any launch when you have an artogonol mechanism of action product like we do, we knew that there was going to be a level of pent-up demand. And it certainly, over time, we've seen that being normalizing. So we're still seeing actually a healthy number of patients that are coming into category. That's about 20% of switch and combo. That will continue to be the same. What's even more important to me is these early diagnosis is actually going to hopefully help to increase the category growth and accelerating that category of growth. We've already seen that. It's gone up from the prior years into -- since we launched an acceleration of these new patients. So in fact, those patients that are getting treated early is going to be a nice tailwind for us.
Your next question comes from the line of Tazeen Ahmad with Bank of America.
I wanted to get a little bit more color about your comments about frontline, it's now about 80% of new starts. Can you just tell me what the split is for use in community physician practices versus centers of excellence? And I guess the question that a lot of people are asking is if for better or for worse right now, physicians are looking at stabilizers as being similar in efficacy to silencers, how do you kind of maintain that growth that you're seeing in front line with needing to balance educating physicians, presumably community-based physicians on the real differences between silencers and stabilizers?
\
Yes. So I'll say a few words, maybe I'll [indiscernible]. Look, I mean, first and foremost, we continue to compete for category leadership against the product that's been in the market for approximately 7 years. And obviously, we remain ahead of the other recent ended. But more importantly, how the business is evolving beneath the overall share, I think, is really, really important. Early in the launch, growth was more balanced between first and second line patients. Today, as second line demand, as we described, has moved toward a more sustainable rate, an increasing proportion of our growth is not coming from first-line patients, which represents the larger and the more durable opportunity.
At the same time, I think this is really important. We are deepening adoption within existing accounts and rapidly expanding that prescriber base. So we're essentially maintaining a strong overall share while improving the underlying composition of the business through a broader physician adoption. Now you brought up the point around the COEs and community experts. What's been really encouraging for us is, as we establish that early base business, that business didn't just come from the COEs. We actually had a very healthy balance of COEs academic centers as well as community experts. What we need to continue to do is to actually expand out those community expert centers, and we know how to do that. Some of the challenges we faced with them early on was, well, okay, I don't know what differences are between the silences and stabilizers. Now those physicians have actually adopted AMVUTRA and all other stabilizers, we actually have a significantly higher market share. When it comes to, oh, well, I don't know how to buy and build this product, particularly around the community expert centers. We know how to bring them along with that, whether through building there are helping their own practice or creating alternative sites of care for their injections. So it is something we've done already, and now we're essentially intensifying our efforts to make sure that actually that adoption curve continues to get deeper.
Yes. And Tazeen, may, I'll just add to what Tolga said in response to your question. Look, there's no head-to-head data, of course, we know between these different classes of medicines. But as tried to highlight in the main presentation, we think we have actually an incredibly unique profile for AMVUTRA. It starts with the outcomes data, which we think are really quite remarkable. I've shown you a substantial impact on outcomes. And importantly, the fact that we've seen now in 2 studies, additive benefits on top of stabilizers would suggest there is efficacy left that's not fully addressed by the stabilizers alone, indirect evidence, but we think it's very strong and reproducible evidence.
We've also seen it starting this class of agents early silencers and the greatest treatment effect and even approaching almost 45% reductions in mortality, which I think is quite remarkable. And we're seeing evidence of disease remodeling when we look at echocardiographic parameters, we look at cardiac MRI, et cetera. So look, our job as Tolga highlighted is to continue to educate on those attributes, continue to generate evidence you've seen it recent means more and more that we're putting out and to continue to educate. And so as Tolga has talked about expanding the prescriber base, important aspect of is educating these prescribers on the attributes of this class of medicines. And we've seen that once they gain experience with it that they find that it actually becomes a dominant part of their practice in terms of the prescribing. So that's going to be our goal.
Your next question comes from the line of Konstantinos Biliouris with Oppenheimer.
One on Europe, given that VYNDAQEL will soon be generic in Europe, to what extent do you seeing the commercial dynamics between AMVUTRA and a generic drug in Europe will reflect what may happen in the U.S. post 2031 when tafamidis goes generic?
Thank you very much. Tolga?
So thank you, Kostas, for that question. First and foremost, I think we've always highlighted that the contribution of growth for Europe is going to be relatively modest, similar to the growth that we had last year. And that had a lot to do with the fact that we were going to actually make appropriate price adjustments in order to capture a larger cardiomyopathy volume.
Now in terms of tafamidis, the 80 milligram, the 4 pills a day option is going to be going generic. I believe 61-milligram will continue to be available for a while. Now in respect to our ability to actually capture those reimbursements since these are single-payer systems, these systems have already anticipated that genericization transition. And what I'm pleased to say that we've actually, in most cases, been able to secure premium pricing versus tafamidis and quite pleased with the ongoing negotiations we have, whether it's Germany, Spain, Italy. And Japan, we highlighted the fact that we are competing very effectively, essentially exceeding all analogs and a good uptake. So while, again, because of the pricing changes, we're going to have a modest growth contribution, particularly in '26, we see '27 and beyond the launches is going to have a meaningful impact on our overall business.
Your next question comes from Eli Merle with Barclays.
Just curious if you could give us more color on what a steady-state level of second line starts look like. I think you said 80% of starts in 2Q were from the front line. So it's 20% a steady state for second-line start? Or do you expect that to decline over time? And then, I guess, what drives your confidence that the front line starts will continue at this cadence going forward? And specifically, if you could give us more color on if we strip out the second line start, have you seen growth in first-line starts or a stable number of first-time starts each quarter?
Thank you, Eli, for that question. I mean just to be clear, when we talk about 80/20 perspective, that's mainly driven by the overall category. And what we've seen essentially is not a market share loss on second line. But the overall volume shift into a lesser contribution of the new brands from switches for the entire category. What I'm really pleased about is while we're continuing to maintain and having a nice gradual progression of our market share, that market share growth is actually being contributed by the first line share. So that's actually a very healthy sign of our business. .
And in respect to the first line contributions, as I alluded to earlier, those physicians that actually use all 3 products predominantly used AMVUTRA is their first time choice. That's the analysis that we have. So now the question is how can we actually continue to expand the prescriber base. So more physicians actually test and understand and experience on AMVUTRA because they experience biggest preference. And this is where we're really putting our efforts in. And we've been able to expand that prescriber base at 1,500 new prescribers since the launch, and we believe we're going to be able to continue to do that. And again, the goal has always been actually on first line. And this is -- this normalization is just question actually, frankly, not just the dynamic, but also the strategy.
Your next question comes from Luca Issi with RBC.
Maybe a quick one for Tolga. Pretty clear at AstraZeneca, I did not show any additive effect stabilizer and silencers in their trial based on the press release, you got to appreciate that different molecule, that's pushed all nicely articulated. But are you seeing any impact commercially based on that data? Are you seeing payers forcing docs to pick one versus the other and no longer allowing patients to be on the combo? Any color there are much appreciated. And then super quickly, can you comment on the evolution of net price in the U.S. for the rest of the year?
So that's a 3-parter, right, I guess. So maybe I'll start. I mean obviously, Pushkal laid it out very clearly why we believe what we believe. Look, in terms of -- in terms of the payer pushback, obviously, it's too early to say, but what I can tell you is this, overall access to AMVUTRA remains very strong. Some Medicaid Advantage policies that are already placed that already puts limitation on combination use and in fee-for-service coverage always follow label. And frankly, physicians continue to have pathways to pursue access when they believe that particularly when the approach is medically appropriate given the severity of this disease.
What's also very important is CARDIO-TTRansform does not change ultra's evidence or its label. It was a study of a different molecule. We would not expect payers to offer alter AMVUTRA coverage based on those results. Our priority remains ensuring appropriate path patients can access AMVUTRA whether they're initiating first-line therapy or switching from another treatment. So we're not seeing any pushback again, given the fact that actually the policies are already in place and yet when a physician wants to have access, they obtain it if they provide the right appropriate materials.
Thanks. Look, I think there are many examples of drugs in similar classes where one drug fails and the other succeeds. And we really believe what we have here at 2 distinct molecules with different mechanisms as well as different profiles and a different study. And really, our job is to get out there, as Tolga was saying and educate physicians on the compelling benefits that we see for AMVUTRA the focus on first line because we believe this should be a foundational therapy as well as explaining the benefits that we've seen in 2 separate studies as Pushkal has explained with respect to combination is. So...
There was one question on net price in terms of what we expect. And I think the slide that Tolga showed that showed the first half dynamics showed the modest quarter-to-quarter decreases in net price. We expect that will continue for the second half. And if we were to show you that on a year-over-year basis, the way we had guided was mid-single-digit net price decrease year-over-year. We're still on track for that, Luca.
The next question comes from Jessica Fye with JPMorgan.
Question for Pushkal. Recognizing that this is hypothetical. Can you elaborate on some of those potential changes available to you with TRITON-CM to maximize its probability of success? And then maybe as a follow-up to that, are there potentially other paths to approval for nucresiran in ATTR-CM beyond TRITON-CM? For example, would it be feasible to run a non-inferiority trial against AMVUTRA?
Yes. Thanks, Jess, for your question. Look, again, we feel really good about what we have in our hands, both in terms of the molecule and nucresiran for all the reasons I talked about and the and the study that we have. So again, I want to reinforce, we may not need to do anything different from what we already have ongoing. That said, we do have options at our disposal. We'll look at the data and we'll consider. I think they broadly fall into a couple of buckets. One is whether we modify enrollment in certain subpopulations, for instance, and enrich in certain ways for those -- again, we've done that already in the context of the study, but we could potentially further do that based on formation that we see. .
The other thing would be to make modifications around the analytic plan in terms of how we think about various endpoints, the hierarchy, et cetera. And so they're largely in those 2 big buckets. I mean, to the second part of your question, is there a possibility that if we wanted to, we could do additional studies. Yes, certainly, those things are potential. I'm not going to speculate though further on what those might look like. But I think broadly speaking, I think there's a variety of options that are in. Again, we're playing the long game here. I think our commitment is to deliver a successful study. We've done that in the past. We think nucresiran has the opportunity to be an amazing medicine for patients, and we're committed to delivering a positive study for that. And so we will consider all the potential options in the hand. As I said, they fall into several key buckets, and we'll kind of consider all those opportunities and see if anything at all is warranted.
The next question comes from Whitney Ijem with Canaccord Genuity.
Just -- sorry if I missed it, but can you remind us on how -- any updated thinking, I guess, around the total U.S. patient population or TAM for ATTR-CM and where you are with diagnosis rate currently? And then just as a point of comparison ahead of the 6400 Phase II data later this year, what are the comparable numbers HHT U.S. TAM in terms of patient number diagnosis rate?
So for TTR, what I can tell you is in our less system, if you go back to our TTR webinar, we've highlighted, we estimate around 200,000 patients and about 80% of those remain untreated. What to me is sort of a good confirmatory data set is the fact that you're seeing around 40% year-over-year growth of the category with a single option on the table that has actually accelerated since we launched. So -- and that remains very robust. So we believe more competitors, more awareness, more education. And frankly, some of those initiatives that we've just actually laid will continue to help accelerate those patients getting diagnosed. And as you all know, we have excellent data that demonstrates those patients that are treated earlier end up actually getting our benefit from AMVUTRA. So we're very actually excited about that. And again, our position on first-line gives us the confidence that we can actually continue to be the leading option on table in this growing category.
Yes. And with regard to hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia. There are -- there really are no approved treatments for this disease. It's actually the second most common rare bleeding disorder that's out there. I think globally, there's about 1.5 million patients with this disease. I think when we think about the addressable population in the United States, I think, again, those estimates vary. I think there's a number of these patients who don't actually get to medical attention, but we think there's probably about 70,000 or so patients in the United States who may be addressable with this condition. But again, that epidemiology will firm up again as we've seen with rare diseases where there aren't treatments once there are effective treatments, more and more come to attention. So that's probably a ballpark though, for you.
And that concludes our question-and-answer session. I will hand it back to the company for closing remarks.
Thank you. So to close, we continue to build momentum across our business as we execute against our strategy and advance towards our 2030 goals. And I'd like to thank everyone who's joined us today. Thank you.
Thank you, presenters. And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Q2 2026 Earnings Call
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Q2 2026 Earnings Call
Alnylam delivered blockbuster Q2 AMVUTRA revenues but trimmed 2026 TTR guidance after second‑line demand normalized; management remains confident in long‑term growth.
📊 Quarter at a Glance
- Revenue: Net product revenues ≈ $1.2B (+74% YoY)
- TTR: Global TTR net revenues ≈ $1.03B (+89% YoY)
- Margins: Product gross margin 75% (‑4 percentage points YoY)
- Spend: Non‑GAAP R&D $377M (+38% YoY); SG&A $297M (+14% YoY)
- Cash: $3.3B in cash, equivalents and marketable securities
🎯 What Management Says
- AMVUTRA launch: Described as category‑defining with rapid first‑line adoption and >90% adherence; aim to broaden prescriber base beyond early adopters
- TTR strategy: Focus on establishing AMVUTRA as a foundational first‑line therapy and scaling global access (China distribution partnership announced)
- Nucresiran stance: Remains confident in TRITON‑CM despite competitor CARDIO‑TTRansform failure; will review competitor data and may adapt study design
🔭 Outlook & Guidance
- 2026 revenue: Total net product revenue guidance revised to $4.7B–$5.1B; TTR guidance $4.2B–$4.5B (≈ $200M reduction at midpoint)
- Collaborations: Collaboration & royalty revenue guidance raised to $575M–$625M (midpoint +$150M)
- Risks: Cut driven by normalization of early second‑line switch demand; watch competitive developments and CARDIO‑TTRansform full data
❓ Analyst Q&A
- Growth outlook: Management expects to sustain long‑term 25% CAGR despite the guide cut, citing strong first‑line momentum and prescriber expansion plans
- Prescribers: ~80% of new starts now first‑line; emphasis on expanding community prescribers and diagnostic efforts to enlarge treated population
- TRITON options: Possible study tweaks include enrollment enrichment and analytic‑plan changes; nucresiran touted to deliver deeper, faster TTR knockdown versus competitors
⚡ Bottom Line
- Conclusion: Q2 validates AMVUTRA's commercial power and drives cash generation, but guidance was prudently trimmed after early second‑line normalization; long‑term thesis (first‑line expansion, nucresiran potential, pipeline) remains intact—near‑term execution and TRITON‑CM/readouts are the key catalysts to watch.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Special Call - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
1. Management Discussion
Good morning, everyone. I'm Chris Brickley, Director of Investor Relations at Alnylam, and I'm pleased to be kicking off our 10th RNAi Roundtable series this morning. Throughout these events, we aim to highlight a few of the exciting programs in our pipeline that represent some of the next wave of transformative medicines we expect to deliver from our RNAi platform.
Today, we'll be covering ALN-6400, which is an investigational therapy targeting plasminogen with the potential to address rare bleeding disorders. Today's event is expected to run approximately 75 minutes. Pushkal will moderate a question-and-answer session at the conclusion of the presentations. And if you'd like to submit a question, you can do so at any time during the event by typing your question in the Ask a Question field located within the webcast platform.
As a reminder, we will be making forward-looking statements during this webinar, and we encourage you to read our most recent SEC filings for a more complete discussion of our risk factors. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Pushkal Garg, our Chief Research and Development Officer. Pushkal?
Thanks, Chris, and welcome, everyone, to today's roundtable on ALN-6400, which we believe represents a potentially transformative RNAi therapeutic for patients living with rare bleeding disorders. With me today are 2 accomplished scientists, who embody our world-class R&D capabilities, John Gansner, Hematologist and Executive Director and the Program Lead for the ALN-6400 Program; and Martina Slingsby, Senior Clinical Scientist and ALN-6400 Clinical Science Lead. We're also delighted to have with us today Dr. Hanny Al-Samkari. Dr. Al-Samkari is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Co-Director of the HHT Center of Excellence at Massachusetts General Hospital. He's a globally recognized authority on HHT and other bleeding disorders.
As you all know, Alnylam is pioneering an entirely new class of medicines to treat human disease. This generational technology leverages the mechanism of RNA interference, a natural process of gene regulation that occurs in every cell of our body.
RNAi works like a biological scalpel, allowing to silence any gene in the genome. Moreover, RNAi is a catalytic mechanism that lends itself to highly potent molecules that require low doses to affect biology and the approach is highly specific and entirely reversible, which minimizes safety liabilities.
Additionally, we're able to engineer long half-lives to enable very frequent administration, which allows us to improve patient adherence and convenience. We've harnessed this natural mechanism into a unique and sustainable innovation engine, which can enable sustained long-term growth. We continue to invest in the power of human genetics, where we now have access to more than 2 million lives through various biobanks that allow us to uncover new genetically validated targets.
We also continue to advance the delivery of RNAi to major tissues throughout the body. Beyond the liver and CNS, we have our first adipose targeted program in the clinic, and we believe we're well positioned to achieve delivery to 10 tissues in the next several years. And of course, we continue to optimize the oligonucleotide backbone of our siRNAs for a wide range of clinical applications. Not only do we continue to evolve our underlying platform capabilities, but we seek to deploy our technology towards creating medicines that have a material impact on the lives of patients with significant unmet medical needs.
To do so, we employ a therapeutic area agnostic approach, pursuing diseases with high morbidity and mortality and -- which we can address with highly genetically validated targets with a strong biologic rationale.
Overall, this integrated approach has enabled us to create drug candidates with high quality and historic clinical probabilities of success far in excess of industry benchmarks. To date, this strategy has yielded what we believe to be one of the most robust pipelines in the biotech industry with over 25 programs spanning rare, specialty and prevalent indications across multiple therapeutic areas.
The investigational therapeutics underscore the depth of opportunity we have at Alnylam to deliver meaningful growth in the years ahead. Indeed, you'll be seeing this growth accelerate in the near term as these programs move forward and reach important inflection points. This year, in 2026, we have 3 pivotal studies ongoing, including 2 cardiovascular outcomes trials for Nucresiran in ATTR cardiomyopathy as well as zilebesiran in hypertensive cardiovascular disease.
We also anticipate 4 key data readouts before the end of this year. We expect Phase I data for both ALN-HTT02, our Huntington's disease program and ALN-2232 in development for obesity and weight management. As you'll hear today, we also expect results from the ALN-6400 program. We plan to share healthy volunteer data from our Phase I study, and we expect initial results from our Phase II study in hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia.
And as we look ahead to the next couple of years, the milestones continue to ramp up. In 2027, we anticipate 4 or more pivotal studies ongoing by the end of the year, growing to 5 by the end of 2028 and over 5 key data readouts in each of those years.
Additionally, in 2028, we anticipate the launch of Nucresiran in hATTR polyneuropathy, assuming positive Phase III data and regulatory approval. And of course, we continue to build the pipeline through the filing of 3 to 4 new CTAs each year as we scale to meet our Alnylam 2030 goals.
A key component of our Alnylam 2030 goals is the growth through sustainable innovation pillar, where we aim to deliver 2 or more new transformative medicines beyond TTR that have blockbuster potential.
As mentioned earlier, we also aspire to achieve RNAi delivery to at least 10 tissue types and have over 40 programs in the clinic by the end of 2030. Now when we think of the next wave of growth in Alnylam, there are several programs that we believe can represent the next wave of transformative medicines to be delivered from our pipeline.
We'll cover those during our RNAi Roundtable series throughout the rest of 2026, starting with today's session on ALN-6400. As you'll hear from the speakers, we have a promising and differentiated approach that has the potential to address rare bleeding disorders by targeting plasminogen. In this instance, we're not knocking down a disease-causing protein, but rather reducing expression of a downstream protein that is involved in all forms of bleeding disorders. This strategy has a very strong genetic validation and clinical rationale, and we believe it has the potential to offer durable bleed protection across a variety of bleeding disorders without increasing thrombotic risk.
In upcoming roundtables, you hear about 2 other investigational programs that we have -- we believe have the potential to change the practice of medicine. Zilebesiran, our program targeting angiotensinogen with the potential to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by providing continuous control of blood pressure and ALN-HTT02, which we're studying to treat Huntington's disease.
And with that, I'd like to hand it over to my colleague, John Gansner, who will discuss the compelling opportunity we see for ALN-6400. John?
Thanks, Pushkal. I'm John Gansner, a practicing hematologist and the program lead for ALN-6400 here at Alnylam. I'm delighted to be able to tell you about the opportunity in front of us, which I think has the potential to revolutionize care for patients with bleeding disorders. We believe there's a broad opportunity across a range of bleeding disorders and that the high disease burden patients with bleeding disorders experience underscores the unmet need for therapies that provide durable and safe bleeding protection.
There are approximately 5 million people living with bleeding disorders globally. These disorders have various etiologies, but they all share a common phenotype bleeding. And this bleeding has a significant impact on patients. It is associated with anemia, iron infusions, blood transfusions, various procedures, ER visits and hospitalizations.
Patients living with bleeding disorders experience disruptions to their daily lives and experience social stigma and anxiety. Furthermore, there are limited or no approved treatments for most of these bleeding disorders. We are developing ALN-6400 to address the significant unmet need in the treatment of bleeding disorders. ALN-6400 targets liver-expressed plasminogen or PLG to prophylactically reduce bleeding.
On the left side of the slide is a schematic of ALN-6400 mechanism of action. ALN-6400 is delivered by subcutaneous injection and lowers liver production of PLG. This reduces the amount of a protein in the blood called plasminogen that is converted to plasma and decreases fibrinolysis or clot breakdown. By stabilizing what I like to refer to as an inner Band-Aid or the natural clot that forms to stop bleeding, we expect ALN-6400 to reduce bleeding in a range of bleeding disorders.
We have 4 strong reasons to believe that our approach will be successful. First, we have a genetically and preclinically validated target. Second, the mechanism is clinically derisked by an existing class of medications called antifibrinolytics.
Third, early data have shown that ALN-6400 is not expected to increase thrombotic risk. That's really quite critical here, and we believe it could be a key differentiator. And fourth, our platform allows for infrequent subcutaneous administration to enable effective prophylaxis. I want to showcase some of the genetic evidence and preclinical data that lead us to believe that PLG knockdown will reduce bleeding.
Based on a U.K. biobank analysis, genetically predicted lower levels of circulating PLG protein are associated with reduced GI bleeding, reduced nose bleeding and reduced heavy menstrual bleeding. In addition, preclinically, we have shown that a PLG siRNA reduces fibrinolysis and mucosal bleeding in nonhuman primates. We observed a near 70% reduction in menstrual bleeding in this model. That's pretty impressive given this is not a model of heavy menstrual bleeding and the animals are starting with what we consider to be normal menstrual bleeding.
We've been steadily generating evidence that, to this point, show there is not expected to be an increase in thrombotic risk with low PLG and PLG knockdown. Genetic and proteomic data, some of which will showcase at the ISTH Congress next month, suggests that low PLG levels are not associated with an increased risk of arterial or venous thrombosis. Natural history data from 107 patients with plasminogen deficiency showed no history of venous thrombosis.
And preclinical models of provoked thrombosis have been reassuring. Despite near complete knockdown of PLG, thrombotic response was the same as control. This could be because our mechanism of action does not alter thrombin generation, which we've confirmed preclinically, as shown in the figure on the far right.
We think the fact that we have not observed an increase in thrombin generation with near complete knockdown of PLG could be a differentiator when it comes to safety. I'm excited to say that we prioritize not just 1 but 2 indications based on high unmet need and disease burden, specifically hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia or HHT and von Willebrand disease, or VWD. These are the 2 most common bleeding disorders worldwide, affecting approximately 1.5 million patients globally in the case of HHT, and 1.5 million to 3 million in the case of VWD.
It's important to note that despite the high unmet need, there are no approved treatments for HHT and that the current prophylactic treatments for VWD have high burden, which I'll touch on later. HHT is a multisystem bleeding disorder with high clinical burden and no approved treatments. This is a disease of abnormal blood vessels that are fragile and prone to rupture and bleeding. Here, I highlight some quotes from Austin, a patient with HHT, who we will hear from at the end of this presentation.
95% of patients with HHT experience nosebleeds, but you really need to hear the patient stories to understand what this means. Picture a faucet of a sink turned all the way on. That's very distressing and dangerous. More than 2/3 of patients with HHT are anemic or iron deficient due to blood loss. About 1/3 have gastrointestinal or GI bleeding and 11% are hospitalized due to HHT at least once a year. It's a terrible disease. We believe that ALN-6400 has the potential to be a first-in-class treatment for HHT.
It brings hope with the possibility of durable and safe bleeding control. We think that its long-acting mechanism could provide sustained bleeding protection with only 4 injections a year. We also expect that as treatments receive regulatory approval to treat HHT, diagnosis rates will increase as we have seen in other disease areas after the first treatments are approved.
Currently, it is estimated that only about 35% of patients with HHT are diagnosed. This could be much, much better. I'm going to turn now to VWD, where there are really limited and burdensome treatment options for prophylaxis. Patients with VWD are either deficient in something called von Willebrand factor or make a defective version of it. This disrupts platelet adhesion and affects the stability of Factor VIII, leading to increased bleeding. So a completely different mechanism from HHT.
But these patients also suffer from substantial bleeding manifestations, which we believe ALN-6400 has the potential to address. There is a disproportionate burden for women with VWD and 90% experience heavy menstrual bleeding. Hysterectomies are unfortunately all too common as is highlighted by the patient quote. And then you see the reference to getting stuck over 32 times a day. The injection burden with existing prophylactic treatments is so high that some patients even require ports, which are medical devices that can be used to simplify I.V. injections, but also have drawbacks.
The current state of prophylaxis for VWD is limited to IV factor infusion, which you have to do 2 to 3 times a week. This is very burdensome and particularly difficult for children. As you can imagine, it's hard to put an IV in your child 2 to 3 times a week. There are many patients who would benefit from prophylaxis that choose instead to manage their bleeds on demand because of the burden of multiple IV infusions per week.
We believe ALN-6400 has the potential to transform prophylaxis for patients with VWD who need effective, durable and safe bleeding control. Based on ALN-6400's mechanism of action, we believe that patients with VWD would benefit from improved protection from bleeding regardless of VWD type or bleed type. By offering patients an innovative, less burdensome option to manage their disease, we anticipate that more patients will opt for prophylactic treatment than do today. We believe ALN-6400 has the potential to transform treatment across both HHT and VWD, offering 2 unique and sizable opportunities.
In HHT, there are no approved treatments currently available. So it's no surprise that current diagnosis rates are quite low at about 35%. Based on what we have seen in many other disease areas, we expect that diagnosis rates will increase significantly once a treatment becomes available. We estimate there are approximately 1.5 million patients globally and 70,000 in the U.S. In VWD, while there are treatments currently available, they are burdensome, resulting in low treatment rates as patients often avoid prophylaxis and seek treatment only for severe cases.
The opportunity here is to increase the treatment rate as more patients adopt prophylactic treatment as efficacious and lower burden options become available. This, too, represents a sizable opportunity given we estimate there are approximately 3 million patients with VWD globally and 140,000 in the U.S. We are really excited about the potential of ALN-6400 as a hemostatic agent with its differentiated approach that has the potential to improve the lives of patients across multiple bleeding disorders by providing long-acting durable protection from bleeding.
We are highly encouraged by its early safety profile and expect that it could reduce treatment burden, enabling more patients to benefit from prophylactic treatment. And with that, I'd like to turn it over to our guest speaker this morning, Dr. Hanny Al-Samkari. Dr. Al-Samkari is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and holds the Peggy S. Blitz Endowed Chair in Hematology/Oncology. He is a classical hematologist and clinical investigator, who co-directs the HHT Center of Excellence at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr. Al-Samkari has published extensively about HHT and cares for several hundred patients at his center. Hanny?
Thank you so much, John. So it's my pleasure to chat a bit about HHT and von Willebrand disease and talk about the manifestations of these diseases and a bit about the patient journey and the unmet need from my perspective as a bleeding disorders expert and a provider for these patients. Next slide. Here are my disclosures. Next slide. So this is how I think about the spectrum of inherited bleeding disorders. And I encourage you to think about it in a similar way. So on one end of the spectrum, we have coagulation factor problems. And the classic disease there is hemophilia, where you have a deficiency of a coagulation factor that leads to bleeding, you have normal angiogenesis and therefore, normal blood vessel structure.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, which is -- there's no coagulation factor deficiency but is a disease primarily of angiogenesis and angiogenic problem. That results in abnormal blood vessels, which we call telangiectasia and arteriovenous malformations that are fragile and they don't properly mature and they bleed and they cause a huge burden of bleeding in these patients.
Now if you look at the incidences, and John already highlighted this, right, we -- when we think of inherited bleeding disorders, the first thing that comes to mind is hemophilia. And hemophilia is obviously a very important inherited bleeding disorder and one of the most common inherited bleeding disorders, but it's actually the third most common, right?
So I think of these as the 3 "common" inherited bleeding disorders. They're all rare diseases technically, right? But when we talk about bleeding disorders, there's the rare and there's the ultra-rare, and these are the rare, which makes them more common relatively speaking. So HHT is about 1 in 5,000. Von Willebrand disease is in the middle. Von Willebrand disease is a coagulation factor deficiency that actually causes angiogenic disruption. So these patients have both impaired hemostasis from bleeding as well as impaired hemostasis from abnormal blood vessels that form and often form in their intestines.
So we have over 30 FDA-approved agents for hemophilia. We have addressed really a massive amount of the need there. Thankfully, my colleagues in the hemophilia space as well as their industry partners have really transformed this disease in a really incredible way. Whereas for the other 2 of these diseases, we are really -- we have a drastic amount of unmet need.
We're really in a difficult place, okay? So for HHT, I don't express hyperbole when I say I believe it is the nonmalignant hematologic disorder that has the greatest amount of unmet need in 2026. And then von Willebrand disease is rather common, and there is a significant gap for patients that have moderate-to-severe von Willebrand disease that is not currently being addressed by the therapies that are FDA approved right now.
I have platelet problem over in the corner. And I think it's just -- I'm just happy to mention or I think it's important to mention that right now, we have no approved therapies for the vast majority of the inherited platelet disorders, but that we actually use plasminogen inhibition primarily to treat them. That's a totally separate talk from other time, but is, I think, somewhat relevant to the topic of today's conversation. Next slide.
So let's talk about HHT. Next slide. So I'll give you a few cases. So this is a 41-year-old man with severe nosebleeds. He works in the biomedical field, diagnosed HHT in his 20s, sent for regular nasal and intestinal cautery procedures that each worked for a couple of months, but ultimately, his bleeding came back worse after each procedure as we know happens in this disease when we use procedures because it's an angiogenic problem. And the more tissue injury you cause, the more you provoke the body to create more telangiectasias and AVMs in these patients. And this patient, unfortunately, ultimately went on disability and his promising career halted because he just could not work with blood gushing from his face, constantly limiting him at work.
I think we all have experienced nosebleed at some point in our life. And so it's easy to maybe make the I think, misunderstood thought that nosebleeds aren't that big of a deal, right? They're not as bad as other kinds of bleeding. When in reality, when they are severe and when they are recurrent, they are perhaps one of the worst kinds of bleeding because they're so obvious and they impact you doing almost anything in your daily life, and that includes working.
And he had chronic anemia requiring regular intravenous iron, constant ER visits for severe nosebleeds. He was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, not surprisingly from his nose bleeding. About half of patients with HHT ultimately are diagnosed with a DSM-5, diagnosed with psychiatric comorbidity because of their nose bleeding. And his well-meaning doc started him on an antidepressant an SSRI, which reduces platelet function. So that worsened his bleeding, right? He said to me, I'm barely 40, but I feel like my life is nearly over, I just want to go back to work and maybe one day be able to have a girlfriend, right?
This is a typical -- this is not an unusual case or a kind of a corner case. This is a typical patient I see in my clinic. Next slide. So HHT is not "that hereditary nose bleed disease, " right? It is a multisystem inherited bleeding disorder with numerous morbid and potentially fatal manifestations. So we've talked a lot about the nose bleeding, and John mentioned 30% of these patients have chronic GI bleeding, right? Between the nose bleeding and the GI bleeding, there is a huge burden of iron deficiency anemia, and it's very common for these patients to be dependent on intravenous iron infusions.
And there is a small subset of the most severe patients that are dependent on red cell transfusions. In addition to that, we have visceral arteriovenous malformations in lung, liver and brain, which can cause a whole host of complications that are quite morbid, high output heart failure, liver disease, pulmonary hypertension, pulmonary hemorrhage, hemorrhagic stroke, epilepsy, other really serious complications.
But you might think, well, gosh, those are the real problem with this disease. But actually, no, right? Patients rank bleeding as by far the most important clinical manifestation because it impacts them on a daily basis and so profoundly, right? So AVMs and anemia tie for second behind bleeding, far behind bleeding. And as has been mentioned, there's no FDA-approved or EMA-approved therapies to date. Next slide.
So because this is an autosomal dominant disease, when I see a patient in clinic, half of their family has HHT. Many of them have not yet been diagnosed, right? So you find one patient and you find 20 more. And this is why at the HHT Center at MGH, I care for several hundred of these patients, several hundred of these families. This is a disease unlike hemophilia, which is a disease primarily of men as an X-linked disease, this affects all sexes equally and actually is the most clinically significant and morbid inherited bleeding disorder of women.
And women actually tend to have more severe bleeding and visceral disease manifestations than men, although both certainly can have severe manifestations. These patients have reduced overall survival because of their bleeding and non-bleeding manifestations. Next slide. The pathologic lesion of HHT is the arteriovenous malformation or AVM. So this is an abnormal lesion, abnormal vascular structure, whereby there are these abnormal fragile friable connections between artery and vein that bypass the normal capillary network. These lesions appear on mucocutaneous surfaces. They appear within organs. When they're small, less than a few millimeters, we call them telangiectasias. When they're bigger than a few millimeters, we call them AVMs.
But the important thing to recognize about them is that they're high flow lesions. These are connected to arteries and arteries have the high pressure inside them. So when these lesions rupture, they often cause squirting bleeding, gushing bleeding, and that's why we can often see the very profound nosebleeds in these patients. Next slide.
These are just some examples of patients that have a lot of telangiectasias. These are very obvious. You don't need 20 or 30 telangiectasias. You only need 2 or 3 to make the diagnosis. I've never met a patient yet in my career that has mucocutaneous telangiectasias in typical locations and recurrent epistaxis who didn't ultimately have HHT.
And as has been pointed out, this is significantly underdiagnosed because, well, for one thing, there's no approved therapies. And another thing, it's something that has not been adequately, I think, given enough time in medical training and medical school, and that's all changing now. Next slide.
More examples of telangiectasias. Next slide. These are telangiectasias in the gastrointestinal tract. And when you zoom in very closely, you see the very kind of spidery appearance of them, the very tortuous abnormal vessels. And these chronically ooze in most patients with HHT. So 3/4 of patients with HHT actually have chronic gastrointestinal -- have telangiectasias in their gastrointestinal tract and about half of them have chronic bleeding that is very clinically significant and usually leads to hematologic support dependence through IV iron and/or red cell transfusions.
Next slide. These are the telangiectasias in the nose that cause the recurrent epistaxis. Next slide. So again, because of these manifestations in these telangiectasias, we have 95% of patients. This was from the comprehensive HHT Outcomes Registry of the United States, a U.S. government-funded registry of HHT Centers of Excellence that enrolled unselected patients with HHT, patients of any age, patients of any severity. And this is the initial report that we just published in blood, 95% with chronic recurrent epistaxis and almost 2/3 of these patients that have moderate to severe epistaxis as is defined by thresholds based on international consensus report in defining epistaxis severity HHT. Next slide.
So 30% with chronic GI bleeding, although only 40% of the patients had even had an upper endoscopy. And by the way, many of the lesions are buried deep in the small bowel. They're not easy to find. And so for the patients that had GI bleeding, 3/4 of them required IV iron and half of them have required red cell transfusion. Next slide.
Heavy menstrual bleeding observed in the setting of essentially chart review was seen in 35% of patients. There's another study actually that is soon to be published that shows a rate of heavy menstrual bleeding of 3/4 of patients with -- of women, menstrual-aged women with HHT. So certainly something that's been underrecognized and people haven't asked about it. If you don't ask about it, you don't diagnose it. And then other bleeding from other areas as well in 41% of patients.
Next slide. So the overall burden of mucosal bleeding in patients with HHT that is moderate-to-severe is 3/4 of these patients, which this is the level of bleeding that is very clearly indicated to treat, right? We want to treat patients with mild bleeding also. But right now, we are forced to use off-label therapies that have a lot of toxicity. And so we only treat the moderate to severe bleeders. Next slide.
Iron deficiency and iron deficiency anemia is "the norm" in this disease, which is a big problem because in addition to drastic reductions in quality of life, one of the most -- one of the clearest things you can do to increase somebody's quality of life is fix iron deficiency in a patient who's iron deficient, but these patients are chronically bleeding. And so it's constantly a game where you're chasing your tail trying to make sure they remain iron replete.
About half of these -- half of patients with HHT, more than half have anemia in this study that evaluated a snapshot in time, 1 year of patients with HHT using ICD-10 codes. And then about half of those patients received iron infusion or red cell transfusion within that year. Next slide.
So when we talk about the bleeding complications of HHT, this is sort of a summary from the CHORUS Registry that I mentioned. And I didn't mention the pulmonary hemorrhage from ruptured pulmonary AVMs that happens in 1 in 50 patients with HHT, which is certainly potentially fatal and this happens in 1% of all pregnancies in women with HHT. And then 1 in 30 patients with HHT developing intracranial hemorrhage. And just to give context, right, that is similar to hemophilia in the '90s before routine factor prophylaxis. The rate of intracranial hemorrhage in 2026 in patients in the United States treated with nonfactor prophylaxis is 0.4% for hemophilia. It's 3% for HHT.
Next slide. So the standard of care for bleeding in HHT is highlighted on this slide or described on this slide. And really, what we are forced to do is supportive therapy with iron. We do procedures when we have to because, again, we really have moved away from recurrent procedures, certainly at HHT centers, although in the community because as you can see, the drugs on this slide are cancer drugs that are FDA approved only for patients with terminal or metastatic cancer, which a lot of docs in the community, including hematologists, oncologists are not comfortable administering drugs like pomalidomide and bevacizumab, administered indefinitely to patients with HHT who have decades of life ahead of them.
The procedure piece is primarily used in HHT Centers to stabilize unstable patients. And then we treat with drugs, and we treat with oral antifibrinolytics, primarily in those patients that have mild-to-moderate disease, and these are patients with patients getting tranexamic acid or aminocaproic acid 2 horse pills every 6 to 8 hours, which is not the easiest thing for patients to take, as you can imagine. And the efficacy of this approach is really limited by/patient compliance, ability to take the pills, side effects that patients have.
And then we have, on the other end, clinical trials of novel agents because, again, we have no approved therapies or repurposed systemic anti-androgenic drugs, which work, by the way, on average for about 3 to 5 years and then they stop working. And so the unmet need here is really profound.
Next slide. All right. So let's switch gears and talk about von Willebrand disease, the most common inherited bleeding disorder. So here's another case, a 40-year-old woman with type 2b von Willebrand disease, complicated by chronic GI bleeding. She's previously managed on 3 times weekly intravenous von Willebrand factor, plasma-derived, but developed infusion fatigue.
She was switched to twice weekly recombinant von Willebrand factor, but this only treated her heavy menstrual bleeding, not the GI bleeding she had from these abnormal vascular lesions in her intestines. On endoscopy, she has these vascular malformations that intermittently bleed, put her on octreotide with minimal effect. This is a drug that reduces blood flow to the intestines.
And she's still missing infusions of recombinant von Willebrand factor, which is normally given twice weekly due to the fact that she's a single mother of 3 kids. She has a busy job, which she works almost 60 hours a week, and she has infusion fatigue. It's not the easiest thing to continue to do this forever. Next slide.
So von Willebrand factor is an important blood protein that forms clots to stop bleeding, okay? It protects clotting factor VIII. And so people who have low von Willebrand factor also have low factor VIII levels. typically in conjunction with the reduced von Willebrand factor. And it facilitates the binding of platelets to subendothelial collagen, these glycoproteins -- platelet glycoproteins that bind subendothelial collagen as well as platelet-to-platelet interactions.
So it serves in many ways as kind of the glue that helps platelets stay together and helps platelets attach to the site of vessel injury. Next slide. So von Willebrand disease is quite common in the bleeding disorder space, the most common inherited bleeding disorder. It's frequently missed. Like HHT, it's frequently missed. And in both of these cases, right, von Willebrand disease -- type 1 von Willebrand disease is the most common type is autosomal dominant, right? Like HHT is autosomal dominant.
So what happens is the bleeding gets normalized in families. Oh, yes, women in our family, they have heavy periods. People in our family, they get nosebleeds. That's just "our family curse. " We just have a lot of bleeding. It gets normalized. And so people don't even know that they have heavy menstrual bleeding. If someone -- if a doc asks, it's normal because the mother of the woman told them it's normal because their sisters have it.
It's just normal to them. So it's very frequently missed. And it can come to attention because of severe iron deficiency anemia or in the case of von Willebrand disease, profound or complicated postpartum bleeding or post-procedural bleeding. Next slide.
So these are the manifestations of von Willebrand disease. Again, not to belabor the point, but heavy menstrual bleeding being a really major one. And this heavy menstrual bleeding in patients that have more mild disease can be managed with tranexamic acid and can be managed with oral contraceptives. But in many cases, it's not adequately managed by our current therapies, and there is a gap and a need for a better therapy for these patients. And then on top of that, right, these patients not infrequently will have some epistaxis. They can have gingival bleeding, they can develop gastrointestinal hemorrhages, and there are increased risk of surgical bleeding and more bleeding after trauma and more bleeding with pregnancy and pregnancy complications with delivery.
In patients who have the most severe kind of von Willebrand disease, they can actually look like a severe hemophilia A patient. Next slide. So not to get too into the weeds, but here are the types of von Willebrand disease. Type 1 is a quantitative deficiency. Most patients have a mild to moderate bleeding propensity. Type 2 is a qualitative deficiency. And the typical type 2 patient has moderate bleeding, but these patients can have mild bleeding and they can have severe bleeding.
And then there's type 3, which is autosomal recessive, essentially an inheritance of 2 type 1 -- drastic type 1 mutations. And this is quite rare, but these patients can look for all the world like a severe hemophilia patient. Next slide. So our current treatments for von Willebrand disease really leave a conspicuous gap. Patients with mild type 1 and type 2 disease are generally managed all right with desmopressin before most procedures, von Willebrand disease factor containing concentrate before major procedures and they have -- they take antifibrinolytics, which certainly do work to help with bleeding after dental procedures, certain surgeries. Sometimes these can be used as an abortive for a particularly bad nosebleed, patients will take 2 tranexamic acid pills.
Patients that have moderate to severe type 1 and type 2 disease and the patient's type 3 disease, however, there is a clear unmet need in this group of patients. So the type 3 patients, as was given -- type 3 patients and severe type 2 patients as was given in the example case that I gave, right, they are often dependent on intravenous infusions of von Willebrand factor, plasma-derived or recombinant -- and these infusions can reduce bleeding and they do reduce bleeding, but they're a really significant burden on the patient.
And it's really challenging if you're in this kind of middle group where you have multiple nosebleeds a week, you have heavy menstrual bleeding that's not managed by typical therapies. You don't technically have type 3 disease. You don't technically have severe type 1 or type 2 disease, but it's moderate. Most of these patients don't want to go on regular infusions. It's just too much of a burden. So there is a clear gap there for those patients. And it's not enough to give these patients oral antifibrinolytics because they don't -- they're not adequate in managing bleeding.
Next slide. So what do we need in von Willebrand disease and HHT? We need safe and effective medications for moderate to severe mucoccutaneous mucosal bleeding. We ideally want a drug that's convenient. It should be -- should have a minimal or nil thromboembolic risk. In patients with HHT, they have increased thromboembolic risk over the general population. And in any bleeding disorder, you don't want to give patients a higher thromboembolic risk if you can avoid it because of, obviously, the challenges with antithrombotic therapy in these patients. The ideal drug is prophylactic as opposed to something on demand and should be ideally administered infrequently.
And it's got to reduce epistaxis in HHT, and it's got to reduce overall mucocutaneous bleeding in HHT and von Willebrand disease. And in a perfect world, would reduce the burden of anemia and the requirements for hematologic support, I.V. iron, red cell transfusion, particularly in HHT, and of course, would improve patient-related health-related quality life. So with that, I'm happy to hand it off to Dr. Martina Slingsby.
Thank you, Dr. Al-Samkari for the excellent and comprehensive overview of the clinical burden of HHT and von Willebrand disease. Your examples really bring to light the devastating impact of these diseases on patients' lives. My name is Martina Slingsby, and I'm a PhD scientist, and I've been the research lead and now the clinical science lead for the ALN-6400 program at Alnylam.
I will now take you through our clinical plans and progress. I've had the privilege of working on this exciting program right from the idea stage around 4 years ago, where the Alnylam model of genetic and preclinical validation and a streamlined approach allowed us to quickly identify a lead candidate and start a Phase I study at the end of 2024. Only about a month later, under 3 years from the idea, we were able to demonstrate clinical proof of mechanism in humans. In September last year, we initiated a Phase II study in patients with HHT.
And last month, we initiated another Phase II study in patients with von Willebrand disease. Here is an overview of our Phase I study in healthy adult volunteers. This was a double-blind, placebo-controlled study testing 4 ascending single-dose levels of ALN-6400. An innovative aspect of this Phase I study was the oral tranexamic acid or TXA benchmark run-in and washout period.
As we heard from Dr. Al-Samkari, the antifibrinolytic drug, TXA is commonly used in both HHT and von Willebrand disease, but is not an approved therapy for these conditions. Due to its short half-life, it needs to be given frequently at high doses, typically at 2 tablets, 3 times a day for a total of 3 to 4 grams a day. It is common for patients with HHT to take this dose of oral TXA continuously every day for years, whereas patients with von Willebrand disease typically take TXA more on demand. In Phase I study, we performed this TXA benchmark run-in where all participants received standard of care doses of TXA prior to their subcutaneous injection of ALN-6400 or placebo. This allowed for mechanistic comparison of the intra-individual antifibrinolytic effect and how durable this response was with TXA relative to ALN-6400 using a mechanistic assay called tPA-ROTEM, performed at various time points in the study, which I will show on the next slide.
We designed the study like this to learn what level of plasminogen lowering is needed in order to have a similar antifibrinolytic effect as oral TXA and what level of plasminogen lowering could lead to a more durable antifibrinolytic effect in the blood. This study has now been completed, and we remain on track to share data in the second half of this year. In the Phase I study, we demonstrated clinical proof of mechanism that ALN-6400 is able to inhibit fibrinolysis in humans. For this, we use tPA-ROTEM, which is an ex vivo assay, which shows whole blood clot formation, clot stabilization followed by clot breakdown or fibrinolysis.
A larger area of blue trace means that the clot is more stable and lasting for longer, signifying an antifibrinolytic effect. The top panels show representative ROTEM traces from a healthy volunteer dosed with oral TXA. And as you can see, at the TXA peak effect, the blue trace was extended, meaning clot breakdown of fibrinolysis was reduced. This effect only lasted for a few hours since the TXA trough 8 hours after TXA dosing, the antifibrinolytic effect had to a large extent, worn off.
The lower panels show the ROTEM rotent responses from the same healthy volunteer after they were dosed with ALN-6400, showing a deep antifibrinolytic effect that was sustained for 3 months. Based on the Phase I results, we have now selected 2 dose levels of ALN-6400 that demonstrated mechanistically greater and more durable antifibrinolytic effects in the blood compared to oral TXA, which we hypothesize will translate to a greater reduction in bleeding.
The bleeding protection effect of TXA last hours per dose. We now plan to investigate whether a single dose of ALN-6400 can offer bleeding protection for several months in our Phase II studies, where we hope to demonstrate clinical proof of concept of ALN-6400 for the reduction of bleeding.
Here is an overview of our multinational HHT Phase II study called InsigHHT, where patients with HHT are randomized to receive multiple doses of ALN-6400 dose level 1, 2 or placebo. In this study, we are focusing on patients with HHT who suffer from moderate-to-severe nosebleeds, like Dr. Al-Samkari referred to in his talk, make up the majority of the HHT patients that he sees. The goals of the study are to evaluate safety and tolerability to determine the Phase III dose and regimen and assess efficacy by a reduction in nosebleeds.
We expect initial results in the second half of this year. We aim to begin a Phase III study in HHT as well as to present full Phase II data at a scientific congress in 2027. We have just started a multinational von Willebrand disease Phase II study called HMBeacon, where adult and adolescent patients with all types of von Willebrand disease and heavy menstrual bleeding are randomized to receive multiple doses of ALN-6400 dose level 1 or 2. As you heard from Dr. Al-Samkari, heavy menstrual bleeding despite the current treatment options remains a huge unmet need in von Willebrand disease. Yet a paper was just published that emphasized that menstrual outcomes are frequently overlooked in von Willebrand disease trials. I am very proud to be part of this Alnylam effort to change that and to be the first company to do a study focusing on women with heavy menstrual bleeding.
The goal with this study is to evaluate safety and tolerability, determine the Phase III dose and regimen, achieve a quick path to proof of concept by focusing on reduction in menstrual bleeding since that is a reliable bleed type that happens every month. We will also be collecting information on other types of bleeds since we're planning to conduct a Phase III trial in both male and female patients with von Willebrand disease of all types, where the primary endpoint is anticipated to be annualized bleeding rate.
In summary, we believe ALN-6400 offers a differentiated approach with broad impact potential across bleeding disorders. We are encouraged by our data so far and believe that ALN-6400 has the potential to safely provide durable protection and reduced treatment burden, which could meaningfully address the unmet needs of patients living with rare bleeding disorders.
Now we will listen to a patient story from [indiscernible] and his family about what it is like to live with HHT.
[Presentation]
And giving us such a powerful window into the realities of living with HHT. Their experience is really brings to life what Dr. Al-Samkari was highlighting in his presentation about the profound unmet need, this disease places on patients, their families and why we're working with such urgency to advance ALN-6400 for patients with HHT and Von Willebrand disease.
We're going to move now into the Q&A session.
So as a reminder, please submit your questions through the dialogue box located within the webcast platform, and we'll answer as many as we can within the time remaining.
Joining me today for Q&A are our 3 presenters, John Gansner; Martina Slingsby and Dr. Hanny Al-Samkari. And in addition, Christi Kelsey, Senior Vice President of Value and Pipeline Commercialization at Alnylam will be joining us for the Q&A session.
So I'll just give a moment for the questions to come in.
All right. And so maybe here we go here. So one is maybe for you, John, Dr. Al-Samkari talked a little bit about the variety of bleeding disorders that are out there across a spectrum of factor, structural defects, platelet defects. What gives us the confidence -- for you the confidence that plasminogen lowering would work across these various etiologies?
That's a very important question, Pushkal, and I'll start by just saying that ALN-6400 targets liver-expressed plasminogen or PLG, which is really a central mediator of fibrinolysis. And that, again, is the process that breaks down blood clots. And so our goal with ALN-6400 is to stabilize the fibrin mesh that holds together naturally occurring blood clots thereby reducing and preventing recurrent bleeding. So you can really think of the therapeutic hypothesis as ALN-6400 is a drug that aims to stabilize and inner bandaid. We believe our approach could be effective across multiple bleeding disorders because plasminogen is a central mediator of fibrinolysis across bleeding disorders in blood and bleed types. And this is really substantiated by the fact that antifibrinolytics are used to reduce bleeding across multiple bleeding disorders.
That's super helpful. And maybe then a related question that came in is, I guess, this assumes if you described this as an inner -- there is a band aid approach that these patients caught sufficiently for this mechanism to work. So maybe Dr. Al-Samkari, can you just talk about across the variety of bleeding, do they have enough clotting that's happening for this kind of an approach to work? And then what would we expect? Would we expect this to reduce the intensity of bleeds that have already started or to prevent bleeds or both?
Yes. Great question. So yes, these patients do have adequate clotting, adequate thrombin generation for this approach to work. They do produce clots. The issue here, and with HHT the amount of thrombin generation is totally normal, and other bleeding disorders, the amount of thrombin generation is reduced, but still adequate to produce clot. Just one thing I think it's really important to recognize is that when we talk about the hemostatic system, we have the coagulation system and the fibrinolytic system. They are 2 separate systems under the hemostatic system. And they both are important.
And the fibrinolytic system, it functions -- it was a kind of constitutively and normally independent of what's going on with the coagulation part of the system. And so this helps us to address sort of rebalance the amount of fibrinolysis with the amount of coagulation that's going on in patients that have coagulation defects and reduces fibrinolysis in patients that have -- sort of rebalances the amount of fibrinolysis that's occurring in patients that have vascular structural defects.
It's also worth noting that in HHT patients do have increased fibrinolysis within lesions. That's something that we didn't actually mention. And so it is also relevant to reduce that as well. But should -- would I expect it to reduce bleeding incidents, bleeding intensity, bleeding duration, all of those things.
And we know that currently, right, are sort of not very adequate from a PK/PD standpoint, antifibrinolytics that we use. They certainly work. But when you give somebody 2 horse pills every 6 to 8 hours and the effect is only really therapeutic for about 2 to 3 hours after the patient takes the medication takes the pill, we know that these drugs work when we give intravenous infusions, right, in the hospital, they work quite a bit better because the person is getting a high dose and good inhibition of plasminogen. It reduces frequency of bleeds. It reduces intensity of bleeds and it reduces duration of bleeds. So all of those things, I expect this approach to work for.
Super helpful. Martina, maybe a question for you. There are a variety of indications. These are 2 diverse indications that we're pursuing. Why did -- why do we pick these 2 sort of deliver proof of concept and to pursue first?
As you mentioned in your presentation, Pushkal, it's really the philosophy at Alnylam when we select indications is really based on around 3 main criteria, and that is the first being the overall scientific rationale, it's got to make sense. Second, the degree of unmet need; and thirdly, and probably most importantly, where do we have the potential to show the greatest impact on patients' lives. And looking at these three criteria, HHT and Von Willebrand disease really fulfill them and really rose to the top here as a good starting point, where, as we've heard, the mechanism of lowering fibrinolysis to reduce bleeding, it's likely to have a transformative impact on the management of these bleeding disorders.
And then based on their high unmet need, but they have high unmet need for different reasons, as we had mentioned in Dr. Al-Samkari's talk in HHT, there are no approved treatment options. So there is really a medical need for a therapy that can offer prophylactic bleeding control, reduce nose bleeding and overall blood loss from other sources of bleeds alleviate the profound anemia burden and the need for frequent hematologic support such as iron infusions.
Whereas in Von Willebrand disease, there are prophylactic treatments, but they are burdensome, requiring IV infusions 2 to 3 times a week, leading many patients to opt out of prophylaxis, which results in under treatment. We believe that ALN-6400 can potentially offer a durable bleed protection across all Von Willebrand types with a lower treatment burden of infrequent quarterly subcutaneous dosing. So this is why we selected HHT and Von Willebrand disease.
That's great. And maybe Dr. Al-Samkari, I think questions for you around -- given in your kind of perch across all that's happening in this space, can you just kind of calibrate your level of, I guess, enthusiasm based on all the biology that was covered here today and what you know in terms of potential of this therapy. What's your sort of general level of enthusiasm about this approach to treat these bleeding disorders?
Yes. I mean I'm very enthusiastic. So I -- right now, when I write about antifibrinolytics, and when we talk about them and use them in clinical practice, we refer them as nonspecific universal hemostatic agents. The challenge is they just are not good at an outpatient perspective, use an outpatient perspective and use chronically because of their pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic limitations. And we know we have lots of evidence that they're safe in patients with bleeding disorders. We have lots of evidence even in HHT as an inherited bleeding disorder with an elevated thromboembolic risk that they're safe.
We have longitudinal data. We have multiple randomized controlled trials that they're safe. It's just that we need a better mousetrap. We need a way to affect plasminogen at a greater -- to a greater degree and much more consistently, which is why I'm very enthusiastic about the prospect for plasminogen knockdown in HHT and other -- across other bleeding disorders. Right now, when we have any inherited bleeding disorder that has no FDA-approved therapies and even for those with FDA-approved therapies, one of the most common drugs, if not the most common drug we use is tranexamic acid, right? So if you could have a much, much better version of this, right, that is easier to use, that has longer effect that is much better at actually reducing fibrinolysis. We anticipate the safety profile will be similar and tranexamic acid is very, very good. And so that's one of the main reasons why I am as enthusiastic as I am.
It's good to have something that works across different pathophysiologies. These diseases are genetically heterogeneous. Von Willebrand disease and HHT both are very genetically heterogeneous and bleeding is the major problem to both of them. And so having something that works independently of what's going on from a genetic standpoint, is also very reassuring that I can have a therapy that will work -- that most likely will work for any of my patients with the disease.
Fantastic. And then you started to touch on this, but can you just elaborate in terms of what safety concerns? I mean, thrombosis is one, what -- Martina reviewed some of the data, what's your take on data supports or around the thrombosis risk. These patients have a baseline thrombosis risk? What is that? And how do you monitor for thrombosis in the clinic?
Yes. Excellent question. So the baseline increased thromboembolic risk in patients with HHT is about two- to fourfold that of the general population. It is driven by multiple different mechanisms, but one of the major ones is chronic iron deficiency, which is -- which causes increased Factor VIII levels and which leads to a higher risk for thrombosis. And obviously, if you can reduce the bleeding, you can reduce the iron deficiency. It's a virtuous cycle in that way.
But how we monitor these patients clinically, we don't -- when we treat these patients, we don't monitor things like D-dimer, prothrombin fragment and HHT because these are patients that are chronically bleeding. And so they're chronically going to be producing D-dimers and prothrombin fragments, and it's not helpful to monitor those over time because very frequently, they're elevated at baseline. We monitor these patients clinically. We do proper physical exams. We ask them proper questions. We educate them in advance of the symptoms and signs to look for and give them a low threshold to talk to us and reach out if they develop those symptoms or signs. And we also have a low threshold to do proper imaging to evaluate if somebody is potentially having an event.
The other part of your question, sorry, Pushkal, you mentioned the data -- so the data -- so why do I feel comfortable? I feel comfortable because we have real substantial body of evidence. And it's been -- Dr. Slingsby pointed out a lot of it. We have great data in patients with HHT showing no increased thromboembolic risk, multiple RCTs, multiple real-world evidence cohorts with over 100 patients followed for years, receiving 4 grams a day of tranexamic acid or aminocaproic acid that show no increased propensity for thrombosis.
We have studies in nonhuman primates. We have studies in mouse models with drastic knockdown of plasminogen showing no increased thrombin generation, no increased incidence of thrombosis. We have real world experimentation in patients with congenital plasminogen deficiency. People who have 5% or 1% of normal plasminogen levels, living their entire lives with these levels, followed for decades in a study called History, which is the major natural history study just published a large report in blood last year, no increased propensity for thromboembolism in these patients despite having very low levels for decades.
We have the U.K. Biobank data, which looked at over 50,000 patients, which was queried by 2 independent groups that came to the same conclusion. You could have reduction in plasminogen levels of any 5%, 90% from normal and no increased thromboembolic risk. So it doesn't get a whole lot better than that when it comes to the level of evidence that we're not really worried about thromboembolism. And let me tell you, it's not easy to anticoagulate these patients. It's not easy. So I have a very -- it's very important to me that when I'm using to treat my patients does not have a substantial thromboembolic risk. And it's important to note that right now, right, in HHT, the drugs that I do use for patients that don't qualify for clinical trials are things like bevacizumab and pomalidomide that have known thromboembolic risks, right? So -- even the bleeding is so significant that we're forced to use those drugs. So it's very, very reassuring to me the safety of plasminogen lowering as we've seen it in plasminogen inhibition, as we've seen it thus far.
That is super clear. Thank you for really reviewing all of that. I think that's super important. We've got a number of questions I wanted to clarify that.
Maybe we should then shift. We were excited about this approach. Martina, maybe this is to you. What data can we expect to see in the clinical readouts later this year? What does good look like in HHT and Von Willebrand? And then maybe John, you can speak to the Hunting -- the HHT data read through to the Von Willebrand disease, given we're going to see the HHT data first. Is that predictive of what we might see? And why do we start that first? And then will that be somewhat predictive of what we see in Von Willebrands. Martina, I will start with you there.
We are now excited to have complete data from our Phase I trial, and we will communicate these results later this year about our learnings of safety and pharmacology of ALN-6400 in-house volunteers. In terms of the HHT Phase II study, just to recap, that includes 48 patients with moderate to severe HHT treated with ALN-6400 or placebo over a 24-week double-blind period. Recruitment has gone very well attesting to the high unmet need in patients with HHT and also to the excitement of our investigators for enrolling patients in this study. And this study is really designed to tell us about safety and tolerability and show us how ALN-6400 can reduce nose bleeding and other improved on other hematologic parameters. And we expect initial Phase II results this year, and we plan to share the full data at a medical conference next year in 2027.
In terms of what wins would look like in these 2 parallel Phase II studies, the successful outcomes for both studies is to demonstrate that ALN-6400 is safe and well tolerated across these 2 indications. And in HHT Phase II, we'll be focusing on a reduction in bleeding, particularly in nose bleeding, but also the overall blood loss and the impact that has. And in our Phase II study and Von Willebrand disease, we are focusing on this reduction in menstrual bleeding, and we are also looking at reductions in other bleed types that these patients may experience also to inform our Phase III studies.
And I'll hand it over to John to comment.
So I mean I just want to go back to what I emphasized earlier, which is ALN-6400 targets liver-expressed plasminogen, which again is that central mediator fibrinolysis. And therefore, we really think that it has the potential, as Dr. Al-Samkari said, to work across bleeding -- blood -- bleeding disorders and also bleeding types. And so we do think that, Pushkal, to answer your question, what we see in HHT will be predictive of what we see in Von Willebrand disease. And we're very hopeful that we will have positive results in both studies.
We'll have to run them to see, but there's actually a lot of overlap between the bleeding types even within those 2 diseases themselves. So you see epistaxis or nose bleeds in patients with Von Willebrand disease, just like you do in HHT and you see other bleed types, heavy menstrual bleeding as Dr. Al-Samkari also emphasized. So we do think the one will be predictive of the other.
Fantastic. And maybe Dr. Al-Samkari, as a clinician, what's the clinically meaningful reduction or impact in these 2 diseases?
Yes. It's a really good question. So we've defined this in HHT an international consensus report that was published last year in an individual patients and improvement in epistaxis intensity, frequency or duration and we say or, but usually effective therapies affect all 3 of these domains of epistaxis, an improvement of 30% relative to baseline is a clearly meaningful improvement. That's what we call an epistaxis response. Between clinical arms of a study, we define the minimal clinically important difference of an improvement of at least 15% relative to baseline in one of these epistaxis parameters, which equates to about 50% of patients achieving that epistaxis response threshold, okay?
This is a difficult disease to treat. It is not easy. And so the -- and it's very, very clear that patients have significant improvements in their quality of life and in their overall blood loss when we achieve at least a 30% improvement. In Von Willebrand disease, an improvement of -- in the annualized bleeding rate of approximately 50% is what I would say would be a clearly meaningful improvement.
Very, very helpful. Let's shift. We're getting a number of questions around sort of just the market opportunity here and the value. So maybe, Christie, I'll bring you into the conversation. How are we thinking about the market opportunity in these 2 diseases? Can you speak to -- we got some epidemiology in our presentation, but can you just speak to what's the addressable proportion of those patients? And where do we see the value? How much is in these indications versus we've talked about a variety of other bleeding disorders, where does the value come from?
Yes. No, great question. And maybe just to pull through a couple of key themes. So on value, we expect significant value creation from these opportunities with combined blockbuster potential. And we expect these two first indications to really be the lion's share of value for the asset. I think a theme I've heard today is just the profound unmet need. If we think of HHT just to go through the numbers, obviously, 70,000 patients in the U.S., over 1 million globally, no approved therapies. And the reason why that's important in value, and I think it's been mentioned today, when there's no approved therapies that often results in not a strong urgency to diagnose. So naturally, from a value perspective, we see that as a market build opportunity. As treatments become available, there's increase in awareness, diagnosis and ultimately, utilization.
To dig a bit deeper on who would this be appropriate for? We anticipate ALN-6400 when thinking about HHT to be most appropriate for those patients that have moderate to severe disease with high clinical burden. We heard today of the profound clinical burden of this disease, and that's about 30% to 40% that meet this criteria. Now it's important to note the current criteria of severity is based on the epistaxis severity score, and that's based on, obviously, nose bleeds alone. Given the multi system bleeding disorder that this is, we expect that these measures will evolve over time, taking into account the full clinical burden and its increasing the opportunity.
For Von Willebrand, I'll be quite quick. This is an underserved market. From the numbers, we know 140,000 patients in the U.S., 3 million globally. But I think as Dr. Al-Samkari communicated, there is a gap. Yes, there's about 25% of patients treated in hemophilia treatment centers, but our internal estimates say upwards of 80% of those patients are eligible for prophylactic treatment and they're not getting it. The current treatments are very invasive. They're very time-consuming. They're very burdensome. I love the example of the patient with job and obviously, children, it's very difficult to take IV infusions 2 to 3 times a week.
So we know from other prophylactic markets like HAE and hemophilia the dosing frequency is a very, very strong commercial differentiator and basically shifts markets and unlocking significant value. So I think bottom line is significant value creation, combined blockbuster potential in both of these disease areas are just waiting for this next wave of innovation that we've seen in some of the other areas that we've mentioned.
That's fantastic. I guess a related question came in, which is people were noting that Incyte recently did a transaction in this space in Von Willebrand disease. Does that change our assessment of the opportunity here and for more innovation?
Not at all. If anything, another kind of external proof point or validation of the opportunity that we see. We really look forward to bringing forward this innovation at pace, and we do believe very strongly that our quarterly dosing profile especially in Von Willebrand disease is quite differentiated and again, unlocking significant value. So it's great to see others that recognize the opportunity that we're talking about today.
Great. And I think we just have time for 1 or 2 more questions. Maybe Dr. Al-Samkari for you, Christi, feel free to add if you do. But just can you -- why are the diagnosis rates so low for these HHT patients? Why are the treatment rates so low for the Von Willebrand disease patients? What's the diagnostic journey for these patients? Is there genetic testing? If you could just kind of spend a couple of moments to tell people and then why they are so low and where the...
Absolutely. So in HHT the Forest registry recently -- the recent publication right it taught us that in the United States, the average patient with HHT has clear signs and symptoms of HHT by age 16, but is only diagnosed on average at age 37, right? So over 2-decade diagnostic delay, which is really unacceptable. But the reality here is that it's a manifestation of the fact this is an inherited bleeding disorder that's progressive. So it gets worse as people get older and really adult docs and I'm an adult doc myself, so I will speak for us, right? We don't do the best job in the world as diagnosing inherited disorders. It really truly many people assume that the pediatricians have done that or are supposed to do that. And many children don't have that many -- that severe manifestations of disease. The most severe manifestations in HHT are really between ages 30 and 70. That's when things come up and these patients are adults.
And so I teach everyone now recurrent epistaxis in an adult if HHT and Von Willebrand otherwise because it's the most morbid potential cause of that. And quite frankly, usually ends up being the diagnosis. So why is it not -- why it is underdiagnosed? A lot of -- sort of fragmentation of care, number one. There are about 28 HHT centers of excellence in the United States, a number that is increasing. Not all of those centers are even funded by the government yet. That's changing. There are 145 hemophilia treatment centers for half the number of patients. Most states don't even have an HHT Center of Excellence yet.
But now starting in 2022, HHT has federal funding, that funding is going up and has already gone up and more and more HHT centers are being opened. And certainly, when we have approved therapies, that's if you build it, they will come kind of situation. But it's an educational gap. And that educational gap is something that the federal funding is explicitly addressing with that -- with funding for CME for docs and for centers to teach their surrounding community.
The diagnoses are -- that the under diagnosis rate is getting better. There's actually studies that have shown these huge increases and prevalence in the United States of HHT in the last 10 to 15 years, that's not because more patients have suddenly come down with HHT. It's because of increased diagnosis. And so this is really going into hyper speed right now. And I suspect that within the next 5 to 10 years, our under diagnosis rate will be down to 20% to 30% from the current 60% or so that it is today.
Why are so many patients Von Willebrand disease not adequately treated? It's because you either have -- you have a toy hammer or a sledge hammer. There's nothing in between, right? The toy hammer is the desmopressin. The sledge hammer is the prophylactic infusions. And so a lot of these patients are just kind of left in the middle and even a lot of docs feel like, well, your disease isn't that enough for 3 infusions of [ Will ] at every week it's not that, and it's too much for tranexamic acid and desmopressin. These patients sort of left in the middle. So I really think that the -- obviously, advances here will help to address that issue.
Very helpful. Thank you for clearing up. Clearly, a lot of room for improvement here. Hopefully, we can make a difference in that as we develop medicine. I think the last question that came in, we did get a number around what our Phase III plans are.
Maybe I'll start the first part, which is -- and what do we know about regulatory endpoints. So John, I'll -- so the preview, should speak a bit to what we understand about endpoints. I can just speak about the Phase III plans. I think we've highlighted in our presentation. Obviously, we're waiting for Phase II data first, and that's a clear milestone we need to get through, and we're anticipating Phase II initial results, as Martina said, at the end of this year for HHT and we'll plan to share those in early '27 at a scientific meeting. Von Willebrands, we -- that study is ongoing, and we'll wait to see. But pending positive results in HHT, we may start a Phase III next year in '27 and Von Willebrands to follow. But we'll give you more updates on that. But again, these are programs that we think given that the short timeline, we may be able to conduct fairly rapidly, again, assuming compelling efficacy and safety data along the way.
But maybe, John, you can just speak to where -- what the thinking is around what registrational endpoints might look like in these diseases?
Sure. Of course, Pushkal, I'll give a concise answer since I know we're short on time. So for Von Willebrand disease, I think it's pretty clear, as Martina said in the slide, the primary endpoint is expected to be ABR. There's a clear precedent in Von Willebrand disease. Trials that resulted in a marketed approvals for ABR to be used. So I think that's very clear, and that's what we'll use.
For HHT, there are no approved treatments, and therefore, there is less certainty. However, we are pretty convinced that because epistaxis is so important from a disease burden perspective to patients and to physicians that, that will be one component that we need to take into account. And again, we think we will have an impact on that in our Phase II study, but we have to show it. And then obviously, we also think that other things like red cell transfusions, IV iron infusion, health care resource utilization and anemia are also important things that we need to take into account when we're thinking about Phase III endpoints.
Fantastic. All right. Well, that -- look, I think that brings this to an end. I want to thank everyone for your questions who participate in the webinar, particular thanks John, Martina and Christi to each of you and especially Dr. Al-Samkari for sharing your insights as a treating physician to today's discussion.
This concludes today's RNAi Roundtable, and you can access the replay of the webinar and download the slides in the Capella section of Alnylam's website. The tenth season of the roundtable series continues on September 17, with this session on zilebesiran which has the potential to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular events by providing continuous control of blood pressure and then followed by a spotlight on ALN-HTT02, which aims to reduce the progression of Huntington's disease on October 26. Thank you all for joining, and have a great day.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's meeting. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Special Call - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Special Call - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
ALNY presented ALN-6400 progress: Phase I shows durable plasminogen lowering vs tranexamic acid; Phase II in HHT and VWD advancing with H2 readouts expected.
🎯 Key Message
- Takeaway: ALN-6400 is an RNA interference (RNAi) drug that lowers liver-produced plasminogen to reduce fibrinolysis (clot breakdown), aiming for durable, prophylactic bleed control across multiple bleeding disorders; Phase I demonstrated sustained antifibrinolytic activity versus oral tranexamic acid.
⚡ Strategic Highlights
- Clinical progress: Phase I completed with proof-of-mechanism; two Phase II trials active — InsigHHT (hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia) and HMBeacon (von Willebrand disease); two dose levels selected.
- Dosing edge: Designed for infrequent subcutaneous dosing (potentially quarterly; management cites ~4 injections/year) vs current frequent IV or oral regimens, reducing patient burden.
- Market shape: HHT has no approved therapies and low diagnosis rates; VWD has underused prophylaxis due to infusion burden — management models combined high-value opportunity.
🆕 New Information
- Phase I design: Innovative tranexamic acid (TXA) run-in and tPA-ROTEM assay showed mechanistic antifibrinolytic effect that was durable for months after a single ALN-6400 dose; two candidate doses chosen for Phase II.
- Timing: Initial Phase II/HHT results expected second half of the year; full Phase II and potential Phase III plans contingent on those readouts.
❓ Analyst Q&A
- Mechanism fit: Management and clinicians argued plasminogen lowering should work across etiologies because it stabilizes the "inner band‑aid" (fibrin) and antifibrinolytics have broad utility clinically.
- Safety focus: Thrombosis risk was the top concern; presenters cited U.K. Biobank, natural history of plasminogen deficiency, and preclinical data showing no thrombotic signal to date, but long‑term surveillance is critical.
- Regulatory path: Expect annualized bleeding rate (ABR) for VWD; HHT registrational endpoints likely to include epistaxis frequency/intensity/duration plus anemia and healthcare utilization; Phase III timing depends on Phase II outcomes.
🔻 Bottom Line
- Bottom line: ALN-6400 is a promising, potentially first‑in‑class long‑acting antifibrinolytic with clear near‑term catalysts (Phase II readouts). Safety data presented are encouraging on thrombotic risk, but patient efficacy, real‑world safety, diagnosis rates, and regulatory endpoint definition are the key variables that will determine shareholder value.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Goldman Sachs 47th Annual Global Healthcare Conference 2026
1. Question Answer
Great. Good morning. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. It's a pleasure to have with us the Alnylam team. With us is Jeff Poulton, CFO; and Pushkal Garg, Head of Development.
Maybe to start here, could you lay out your 5-year goals where you've talked about 25% revenue CAGR as well as 30% non-GAAP operating margin. Could you frame the contribution of AMVUTTRA relative to nucresiran in the context of that and the pipeline as it relates to the 2030 outlook?
Yes. Let me -- I'll sort of walk through the main categories of the goals that we rolled out earlier this year. We called Alnylam 2030. This is the fourth iteration of 5-year goals that the company has put out. And this has really, we think, been part of the story in terms of driving performance for Alnylam, both externally in terms of being really clear with the market about the areas that we're focusing our business, but also internally to make sure that the employees all are rowing in the same direction on the things that are important to us.
So the areas that we focus the goals on this year for 2030 were around leadership in TTR, which clearly is a big focus of the market. And we've defined leadership across the period in 2 ways, being the sort of peak revenue franchise in 2030 and also cumulatively across the 5-year period. That's how we're defining leadership. So that's the goal for TTR.
On the pipeline, this is really about driving diversification beyond TTR. And so we're very focused on advancing the pipeline to do just that by 2030. We've got a number of metrics. I'm sure Pushkal can go into these in more detail. But we're looking to have 2-plus new products that are either in the market or a line of sight getting to market that could be blockbuster type opportunities beyond TTR.
Again, that's really important to us to start driving longer-term diversification of the pipeline. And then some other things that are important to us are expanding into new tissues because we think that, in particular, unlocks a lot of very attractive opportunities. So we're looking at 10 tissues by 2030. And then just the breadth of the pipeline, we're looking to have 40 clinical programs by 2030.
And then lastly are the things that you touched on, which are really about how we're anticipating scaling the business financially. So we guided to a 25% top line CAGR, that's product sales, collaboration and royalty revenue. And I'll get to your question about nucre versus AMVUTTRA in just a second.
And then we also guided to non-GAAP operating margin of 30% across the period. And let me just touch on that for a second because I think that was an area where the market had to adjust a bit. The market was at a much higher rate by 2030. I think consensus at the time we guided to 30% across the period was more like 50% operating margins in 2030.
And with our gross margin profile through 2030, given the AMVUTTRA royalty burden, I mean, the market consensus is around 75% gross margins, very difficult for us to be at a 50% operating margin in 2030. And we're also investing heavily in R&D across the period to drive the R&D goals that I talked about to drive long-term diversification.
So back to the question about what's AMVUTTRA versus nucre, for 2030, that's primarily going to be AMVUTTRA just because of the timing of the Phase III studies that we're running for nucre right now. Again, Pushkal can get more into the details, but we have 2 Phase III studies for nucre. The PN study will be quicker.
We're looking at 2028 in terms of timing to market. And then we look at CN is likely at 2030. So the primary revenue driver is going to be AMVUTTRA across the period post 2030, assuming that we have a profile that we think we could have in terms of a best-in-class profile for nucre. That will drive long-term top line growth, but also importantly, unlock more margin. We talk about 30% through 2030. But with a heavy royalty burden on AMVUTTRA, we think that unlocks margin into the mid-40s post the launch in cardiomyopathy.
And how does external business development fit into your strategy here? Maybe walk through size, therapeutic area and potentially even expanding outside in terms of a different modality versus siRNA.
And I'll just touch on what we said about R&D investment, and I'll maybe let Pushkal talk a little bit more about the types of things that we might be interested in. The guidance on R&D reinvestment in the business as a percentage of revenue is 30% across the period. And that does include headroom to do business development. But I'll let maybe Pushkal take the question about areas of interest.
Look, we're really excited about what we have in terms of just a product engine and the probability of success that's associated with that, right? And so if you think about it over the past years, we've had over 50% probably the success of things we put into the clinic coming out on the other side. So our primary focus is going to be in our internal pipeline. We have about 25 drugs in development, and we'll have 3 or 4 new INDs each year as we go into new areas. So that's the primary focus.
But we also recognize there's a lot of innovation happening outside, and we now will have sort of really the financial wherewithal to be thinking about some of that, as Jeff outlined, as AMVUTTRA continues to grow. And so we are thinking about where we can deploy that capital.
A lot of that is going to be used where we do think about BD is where we're going to have a very high bar, right? Again, it's going to have to compete with internal programs. And so we'll make sure there's a strong scientific and economic basis for what we're doing. And we primarily see this not sort of to be confined to more or less early-stage assets that are actually going to either really help us advance whether it's on our delivery objectives, et cetera, or early-stage assets that synergize in some way with where we have a commercial business, right? And so I think those are probably the main areas where you'll see us focusing on for the next few years. But we're in no hurry to do it. We'll be -- kind of be very thoughtful about what we do.
And what will we see from the pipeline within the next 12 months? And what do you see from that -- from the overall portfolio as kind of the key levers of next growth beyond TTR?
Yes. So I think if you -- I'll maybe start with the second part, if you think we have got nucresiran that's obviously in the clinic now, and Jeff touched on that. That's moving. We have zilebesiran now, which offers continuous control of blood pressure, 2 injections a [ year ] reduce variability, improve adherence, restore nocturnal dipping. We think that will result in a real cardiovascular outcomes benefit. So that ZENITH study is underway and enrolling well. That's not going to read out until around 2030 time frame.
In the nearer term, we have a number of things that we're going to be seeing data on. We have our first metabolic disease asset going into the adipose tissue, ACVR1C or ALK7. So that's started. We think that's going to be a big driver of reducing visceral fat while preserving muscle mass. And we see the overall obesity overweight market evolving and subsegmenting quite a bit. And so we see a real role for that, perhaps as a monotherapy, certainly in combination with other therapies against a variety of metabolic health conditions.
We have an exciting program targeting Huntington's disease that's going to give us some data this year. We have a very unique approach that targets not only the mutant Huntington's protein, the full length, but actually this important isoform, the exon 1 fragment that I think really-- now is a huge consensus in the academic community is critical to the sort of propagation of these Huntington aggregates. And so we can specifically knock down both the protein and the transcript, both of which are believed to contribute to disease. And that's in contrast to prior approaches to silence Huntington's and other existing approaches. So it's a very unique way.
And so later this year, we'll have some exciting data, we hope, in terms of both knockdown, being able to get high levels of knockdown, infrequent dosing, good associated safety. And with those data, I think we'll be in a good position to actually move into more advanced pivotal trials. And so that's something we'll be updating on later this year.
And then the third big asset that we have is an exciting program that targets plasminogen. And that is an agent that has the potential to be a universal hemostatic agent. There's about 3 million [Audio Gap] treatments really for [indiscernible] disease. We don't have effective prophylactic therapies for most of these. And so what we're bringing forward is a drug that will be a few times a year and actually stabilize clots. And the beauty here is that the genetics and the preclinical data suggest it can stabilize clots without increasing the risk of thrombosis. The first indication we're pursuing is something called hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, which causes bleeding through in the GI tract, nasal cavity, et cetera. And so we'll be able to look at bleeding data from that program later in the year.
Great. Maybe just pivoting over to your TTR franchise here. So in the context of the 2026 revenue guidance, how do you view the AMVUTTRA trajectory for the remainder of the year, including any other idiosyncratic items such as shipping weeks or ex-U.S. pricing adjustments, for instance?
Yes. So the guidance, as you said, for the year is $4.4 billion to $4.7 billion Q1 was held back both U.S. and ex U.S. by some phasing factors that will not impact the balance of the year in our international markets. We had a price reduction in Germany at the end of 2026 for the launch in cardiomyopathy, which has an impact on the existing PN business, obviously, unlocks a much larger opportunity.
But in the quarter, when you take the price reduction, it does have a headwind effect on the business. So our international markets were down $7 million between Q4 and Q1. We absolutely expect growth for the balance of the year in our international markets. We're now launched in the majority of, I would say, the major markets ex U.S., so Japan, Germany, the U.K. and Italy. We're continuing to work on opening up France and Spain, but we do, again, do expect growth for the balance of the year in our international markets.
In the U.S. in the first quarter, we grew about $60 million versus Q4. And the things that we had flagged that were headwinds for Q1 from a phasing perspective were the typical insurance reauthorization process, which we did see impact the business, particularly in January. And then with the way our product gets ordered and shipped and revenue booked, the number of Wednesdays in a quarter actually has an impact. And with the way the calendar fell, there were more Wednesdays in Q4 than Q1.
None of these things that I've just described will impact the rest of the year. In the U.S., the focus is really around 2 things to drive the business. First, I would say the foundation in terms of what we've accomplished to date, one is on the sort of preference side, what we see where physicians are using AMVUTTRA, right? And they've got 3 choices to make 3 options to treat these patients today. But where doctors are experienced with AMVUTTRA for cardiomyopathy, we have a leading share amongst those physicians. That's a good starting place for us.
Secondly, I think on the access side, we've done a very good job in establishing the opportunity for physicians to write the product and feel confident that the patients can get the drug. So from a payer perspective, we're at more than 90% of patients have first-line access to AMVUTTRA. That's terrific. The only part of the market where there are some steps in place is the commercial part of the market, but that's a fairly small part of this market.
Patients, majority of the patients, zero out of pocket, right? So it's not a financial burden for the majority of the patients. And then from a provider perspective, we've really done a nice job on the buy-and-bill side, both with the health networks, the hospital networks where we've got the drug on formulary.
And then for physicians that may be outside of those hospital networks where they don't want to buy and bill, there are infusion clinics. There's about 2,000 clinics in a network that we've created that make that where they can refer the patients to the clinic to do the buy-and-bill. So that's all in place. What we're really focused on for the balance of the year is first expanding the prescriber base.
Again, I talked about we have a leading share when physicians are using it. We want to drive more utilization into the part of the market where they're not using it today. So some of that's based on sales force targeting and really focusing more energy on docs that are not using the product yet. And then additionally, we are still starting to put a little more effort behind driving earlier diagnosis.
We announced a partnership with a company called Viz.ai that has an AI algorithm that can get connected to electronic health records and review echo tests, right, both prospectively and retrospectively. And we'll run a pilot with them in 5 health networks to see if we can have success in driving more diagnosis. So those are the things I would say are highlights for the U.S. that will help drive more growth for the balance of the year.
And how are you thinking about the cadence of the ex U.S. launch and just the trajectory with regard to gross to net dynamics for the TTR drug?
Yes. I mean that's really on a market-by-market basis. Obviously, we're negotiating, I mentioned right now in France and in Spain. And look, the impact that, that will have on the business depends on ultimately where we land in terms of an agreed price. We have had some success in certain markets where we're priced at a premium to the existing standard of care in markets outside the U.S. And in other markets, it's more priced at parity. So that really is determined on a market-by-market basis based on negotiations with the local authorities.
And the U.S. net price decline?
Yes. We -- so I would say the story here has been consistent since the time of launch. We talked about a gradual reduction in net price over time as the business scales. Last year, that meant about a 5% net price decline versus 2024, and we've guided to something similar this year compared to 2025. And I think we're on track to -- that's the right guidance for the market.
Got it. Have you seen patients covered for tafamidis and AMVUTTRA combination use and in which segment? And maybe talk to evidence of cross management in Medicare Advantage.
We have seen some combination use. I think combination use is generally restricted in the commercial part of the market as well as the Medicare Advantage part of the market. That leaves the fee-for-service part of the market where there's no active payer management that are putting policies in place to restrict combination use.
And in the cardiomyopathy part of the market for us, that's probably about half of our business. And so we have seen and particularly in that segment of the market that there has been some combination use. Of course, we have data in our label, right? That's one of the subgroups that was studied in the HELIOS-B study, and we saw a consistent effect in patients that were on tafamidis as well.
And so I think that's been supportive of some of that combination use that we see ongoing. We think the more significant unlock for the combination opportunity in terms of timing happens when TAF goes generic and with Pfizer announcing recently the settlements that they've had with the generic filers that's middle of 2031, which from a timing perspective for us, given the design of the nucre study, which is largely going to be a combination study, and we think we bring that to market in 2030, that's probably a good timing for us.
You've framed that when you had Phase III data in ATTR-CM in second half could support combination use here. How are you thinking of positioning amidst payer and price dynamics as monotherapy and combination, especially in Medicare Advantage where we're cross managing as well.
Yes. I mean, again, I think what I talked about is that on the Medicare Advantage and the commercial parts of the market, they typically have policies in place today that do restrict combination use. So we're not seeing a lot of combination use in that part of the market. It's really more in the fee-for-service part of the market today.
And I don't think that will change significantly until, as I mentioned before, we get to the unlock on tafamidis -- tafamidis goes generic and then you've got a much cheaper option to do the combination with. That's what will really open up more opportunity for combination in our view.
And how are you thinking about just your pricing relative to the other drugs and there?
Yes. Look, I think there's -- we're the only drug in the Part B part of the market today. We're competing today against 2 stabilizers that are in the Part D part of the market that are at a lower price point than where we are. We're obviously waiting on the data from the AstraZeneca on this product. We -- our belief is that largely will also be a Part D product, although it sounds like they have some optionality between D and B. And so I'm not sure that, that's going to change anything when they come to market if it's predominantly a Part D product in terms of pricing dynamics for us. So we feel relatively confident about where we are right now from an access perspective.
Pushkal, do you want to speak to maybe your thoughts on how that trial will play out, both from the overall standpoint, but also in the TA/combo arm and whether that could actually be stat sig?
Yes. Look, I think they've got -- clearly, we know that molecule is effective, right? It showed good results in the PN population. And so here, they're doing an outcome study. It's about twice the size or a little bit more of HELIOS-B. So I think they're well set up to have a clinically important effect seen. I think if I had to benchmark, I would sort of say it's probably going to be more or less in the same size of treatment effects that we've seen already with AMVUTTRA and HELIOS-B. It's a little bit shorter.
So maybe they could have a little bit of a lower effect size as a result of that. But I think the fact that their population is so large still sort of sets them up, I think, for statistical significance. Now I think they've also announced recently some changes to the hierarchy of their endpoints.
How that's going to play into how far down the hierarchy they can get. It's hard for me to kind of prognosticate on that. But I think our going-in assumption is they're going to have an effective drug. It's going to be effective across the 2 segments of the population. The effect size will be in the range of what we've seen with HELIOS-B.
And so I think, again, we feel well positioned for AMVUTTRA and the fact that we already have a label that allows combination use. And again, as Jeff was saying, that we're following that up with nucresiran, which now is a much larger study, which is predominantly combination and we have both of those data sets at the time that tafamidis goes generic in 2031.
And for your next-generation TTR asset, nucresiran, for the Phase III CM study, do you believe the majority of patients will be on background stabilizer therapy? And what gives you confidence in the timing of events and the separation of the curves in that context?
Yes. So it is largely a combination therapy study. We expect there'll be some monotherapy use, but a lot of it will be on background stabilizer. And we kind of again designed this in anticipation of where we see the market evolving over time. We designed this with a lot of insights from HELIOS-B. So we have several hundred patients worth of combination therapy in that study. So we have really good individual level data to be able to understand what is the rate of sort of events that we can expect, what kinds of events, how they accrue, et cetera.
And so that gives us a lot of insight in terms of as we designed the TRITON-CM study with nucresiran. And it was using those insights that we kind of set the study up. We also recognize that it's likely, as we've seen successive clinical trials in this space that patients are getting diagnosed earlier, may be somewhat milder.
Enrollment has gone actually far ahead of schedule, and we've been really excited about that. It shows the real strong interest in this molecule. But we also, as somewhat predicted, saw that patients are a little bit on the milder side relative to what we saw in HELIOS-B. We had a predefined provision in the study to increase the sample size by 500.
And given the speed of enrollment, we pulled the trigger on that, and that's going to help us really accrue more events and compensate for the fact that maybe there'll be a somewhat lower event rate given the milder population. It's also an event-driven study. So obviously, we'll follow until we get enough of those events [Audio Gap] following that we, if anything, this increase in sample size a little bit sooner given the sample size. So we feel well positioned with that study.
Maybe a last question on the TTR side. But can you frame the size of the overall TTR market and your confidence in Alnylam's share here and where you expect these additional drugs when you antibody depleters and gene editing to ultimately fit in?
Maybe I'll start. I'll just say I'm going to repeat some things that we said on a TTR webinar that we did earlier this year around sort of our revised view of the size of the opportunity. We've talked about in the U.S., 200,000 or more patients and then globally, 500,000 or more. I think what's important is we're still very early in diagnosing and treating that patient population, right, that prevalent patient population. So we're probably around 20% of those patients are treated today. So there's a significant opportunity here to continue to drive diagnosis and treatment rates over time. But Pushkal, I don't know if you want to add.
Yes, I think as we think about treatments over time, look, this is a growing market. I think there's going to be a lot of space for multiple therapies in this disease area. I think -- we certainly feel very good about where the silencer class is, I think, going to evolve into being a foundational therapy, starting with AMVUTTRA, particularly when nucresiran comes along and to have sort of a twice-a year drug that gets to 95% knockdown, I think is going to be really great for patients.
But look, there's going to be continued innovation. The depleters are very interesting, right? We have 2 depleter studies going on now, large Phase IIIs. I think we'll see what those data ultimately look like. I think the conventional wisdom is these are somewhat cumbersome right now. They're IV. They're given monthly. I think there's several hour infusions.
And that they may be particularly used then for patients who are more advanced when they present sort of Class IV types of patients, Class III patients and really as a shorter-term induction approach to kind of clear some of the amyloid, hopefully, and then keep them on a backbone ideally of a silencer or perhaps a stabilizer depending on the physician and patient's preference.
So we look forward to seeing those data, and it will be interesting to see how that all plays out. But that's, I think, the conventional wisdom right now. I think in terms of the gene editing approach, look, I think it's a very, very interesting approach. I think -- and I'm sure there will be a segment of the population that may benefit from that or choose to opt that way.
I think the relative benefits compared to, for example, twice a year nucresiran that get you to 95% silencing, I think, starts to become a little bit more difficult to see where -- how that market evolves and given that we'll also have some challenges to figure out in terms of pricing and how that all works with a one-and-done therapy. So again, I think there'll be plenty of space for a number of players here, but we feel very good about what we're doing with both AMVUTTRA and ultimately with nucresiran.
As you noted earlier, you'll have data from 3 early-stage programs this year. Maybe starting with ALN-HTT. What's your confidence in that program in terms of the mechanism and the ability to achieve sufficient distribution here in Huntington's? And what's the bar for HTT knockdown?
Yes. So look, we're really excited about the program. We have, as we said, very strong genetic data and a lot of scientific data that's accumulating in terms of the specific way that we're targeting around this exon 1 fragment. In terms of delivery and safety, our C16 platform, and we put out now data on APP, which is the lead program in that platform.
Now we have, I think, over 18 months, 24 months of data out there suggest we can get to very high levels of knockdown over 70% with biannual dosing, and it's well tolerated. That's -- just to remind you, if you think about prior programs like Tominersen program against Huntington's disease, they got to about 25% or 30% lowering max, and that wasn't well tolerated.
They actually kept trying to have to reduce dose and space out dosing that early generation ASO. And so I think we feel good that our general approach and both now from human data from APP, what we've seen preclinically, where we can actually get very good biodistribution there as well in nonhuman primates and deep levels of lowering with infrequent administration and good tolerability.
So I think overall, the platform, we're very confident of in terms of the C16 platform. We have now multiple products that are in the clinic between us and our partners at Regeneron using that platform, and we've seen good safety, good knockdown and good biodistribution. I think we all have to have a little bit of humility going into an entirely new disease. So while we're very confident in the approach that we're taking scientifically, at the end of the day, we're going to generate data in patients to show that there's a clinical benefit that comes from that.
In terms of the target, I would say in general, I think the genetics and the preclinical data and sort of expert consensus which is if you get over about 50% knockdown, then we should be in a good range to sort of explore the therapeutic utility of that. So that's what I would be looking for.
And you have ACVR1C in obesity that's reading out as well. Maybe walk us through the strategy here with this asset and whether you would need to combine it with a GLP versus use it as a monotherapy.
Yes. Look, I think, obviously, the GLPs have transformed the entire space here. I mean it's -- but there are -- I think there still remains a fair amount of unmet need. We see the market segmenting over time, patients with various types of comorbidities, some patients who can't tolerate the GLPs are certainly at full doses.
People need to preserve muscle mass and you can't tolerate the risk of sarcopenia that comes from the GLPs. And so we're developing ACVR1C, where we think we have very strong, again, genetics and preclinical data that this can really specifically target visceral fat. And we know that visceral fat is the key factor in terms of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, diabetes risk, et cetera.
And so what we're doing this year is this is our first adipose targeting program. We'll have data at the end of the year, primarily on knockdown, safety, but also some visceral fat data. And then we'll kind of come back and talk to you a little bit more about what we might be doing with this in terms of segments of the population, potentially in combination with GLPs, but potentially in combination with other agents as well where we think that we can really discern and make a meaningful impact on aspects of cardiometabolic disease.
You have your plasminogen knockdown program as well in bleeding disorders. Is there a benchmark that you see as meaningful with regard to reduction in bleeds in HHT? And you did recently initiate a study in von Willebrand disease and heavy menstrual bleeding. So maybe speak to the unmet need and rationale for these 3 programs.
So as I was saying earlier, this target really addresses it a protein called -- a liver protein called plasminogen, which basically leads to clot breakdown. It promotes fibrinolysis. And so by silencing it, we can actually have an antifibrinolytic effect and stabilize clots. And the beauty here is that you can actually hopefully stabilize clots, reduce bleeding without increasing the risk of thrombosis, which is what all the data would suggest.
And this mechanism is such that it really should work across a variety of bleeding disorders. So if you think about HHT, it's really a disease of vascular malformations that happen. If you think about Von Willebrand disease, which is really the most common bleeding disorder, HHT is the second most common bleeding disorder. It's really a platelet disorder, platelet aggregation. So we can attack bleeding disorders through a number of different mechanisms, all with this unifying approach that's downstream in the overall bleeding cascade.
So we picked these 2 because they both have a tremendous amount of unmet need. They're fairly prevalent with regards to rare bleeding disorders. As I said, von Willebrand is the #1 and HHT is #2. And they both -- HHT, there's no approved therapies. Von Willebrand, there are treatments that are available. They're primarily used for acute treatment, they're not really suitable for prophylaxis.
And what we're thinking about is a drug that would probably be given several times a year, subcu and really reduce bleeding risk. In terms of the magnitude of effect, look, I think it's going to vary a little bit. There's not just the number of bleeds, but there's the intensity of the bleeds that we want to reduce. If you think about HHT, for instance, there's patients who have bleeds, nose bleeds that last several hours a day that can be 3 to 4 days out of a week. The impact is devastating in terms of their ability to interact in social circles to go to school, to go to work. And so we'll be looking at all of that to characterize the efficacy of the drug.
Mivelsiran that's being studied here in Alzheimer's also cerebral amyloid angiopathy. Maybe help us understand the approach there and speak to the tau approach as well.
Yes. So lots happening in that space. So mivelsiran targets amyloid precursor protein, which is really the top of the cascade where all that amyloid is ultimately produced. Amyloid can actually come in a couple of forms, Abeta 40 and 42. And they -- some of that leads to Alzheimer's disease. Actually, the AB40 is actually involved in a disease, a closely related disease called cerebral amyloid angiopathy, where the amyloid deposits in the blood vessels of the brain cause them to become brittle and it's the second leading cause of hemorrhagic stroke, this disease CAA.
So we have a Phase I that's been going on in early onset Alzheimer's disease. We've reported out on that. We've seen great levels of knockdown tolerability. We've started the CAA study. We have a goal that we've announced this year to complete enrollment in that study. It's a 200-person study by the second quarter of this year. And that will set us up to have data end of '27, early '28 time frame.
And there, we're looking at bleeds. We're hoping to see bleed reduction. On the Alzheimer's side, we actually just -- I think it just got posted today, announced a small Phase II study in Down syndrome Alzheimer's disease. We think that this approach is going to be most effective in somewhat of a preventative setting, getting in early in disease and start stopping amyloid deposition. And it's also important because it can reduce both intracellular and extracellular amyloid as well as all the various isoforms of amyloid that form without increasing the risk of ARIA.
And so this Down syndrome population is actually -- the mechanism lines up very nicely. Trisomy 21 is the belief that actually the overexpression of APP in that setting is what actually leads to the Alzheimer's disease, which is 100% penetrant in Down patients. If they live to about 40 to 45 years old, which the majority now do, there's about 50,000 such patients about 90% to 95% of them -- and so we think our approach can be a benefit to that population. So we're doing a study there. And the learnings from there will also then inform approaches into the sporadic AD population as well.
As you touched on, there's also advances happening on the tau side. Biogen has put out some top line data suggesting that with their ASO, they may be seeing some benefits in terms of cognitive dysfunction -- cognitive function. And we have an siRNA that we're bringing forward that's in Phase I development against tau as well. And so we look forward to seeing those data. And then that will open up for us a little bit thinking about how we bring that molecule forward in Alzheimer's potentially as a monotherapy, potentially we can think about combination approaches. So really, we think we're really well set up as we kind of think about the next stage of innovation in the Alzheimer's space to make some progress.
Perfect. Jeff, it looks like you're on track for investing 30% of revenue in R&D.
I think we'll have the opportunity to do it, right? And again, importantly, what that's about is driving long-term top line growth also beyond TTR, which we think is critical and the time is now.
Yes. Perfect. Well, with that, thank you so much. Really...
Thank you.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Goldman Sachs 47th Annual Global Healthcare Conference 2026
Alnylam presented its "2030" growth plan: AMVUTTRA will drive near-term revenue while nucresiran and a broad pipeline aim to deliver long-term growth and margin expansion.
📣 Key Message
- Takeaway: Alnylam 2030 targets 25% revenue CAGR and a 30% non‑GAAP operating margin through 2030 while reinvesting ~30% of revenue into R&D to diversify beyond transthyretin amyloidosis (TTR). AMVUTTRA is the near‑term cash engine; nucresiran (next‑gen TTR silencer) is timed to boost growth and margins around 2030.
🎯 Strategic Highlights
- AMVUTTRA vs nucresiran: AMVUTTRA will be the primary revenue driver through 2030 due to timing; nucresiran could reach market for polyneuropathy (~2028) and cardiomyopathy (~2030), enabling mid‑40s operating margins post‑launch assuming favorable profile.
- Pipeline & tissues: Goal of 40 clinical programs and activity in 10 tissues by 2030; priority programs include zilebesiran (chronic BP control), ALN‑HTT for Huntington's, ACVR1C for visceral fat, plasminogen knockdown for bleeding, and mivelsiran for amyloid/CAA.
- Capital allocation: R&D reinvestment target of ~30% of revenue (includes BD headroom); business development will be highly selective and must outcompete internal projects, with emphasis on delivery tech or strategic synergy.
🆕 New Information
- Timelines & design: Nucresiran enrollment ahead of schedule; polyneuropathy readout expected 2028, cardiomyopathy ~2030; Phase III cardiomyopathy study (TRITON‑CM) sample size increased by ~500 to preserve event power.
- Operational moves: Pilot with Viz.ai to boost earlier diagnosis; Germany pricing adjustment impacted Q1 international sales; CAA (cerebral amyloid angiopathy) study aims to enroll ~200 and report late‑2027/early‑2028.
❓ Analyst Q&A
- Pricing & net price: Management reiterated a gradual U.S. net price decline (~5% last year, similar guidance this year) and noted ex‑U.S. pricing varies market‑by‑market; Germany cut weighed on Q1.
- Combination use & payers: Combination therapy (AMVUTTRA + stabilizer tafamidis) is limited today by payer policies in commercial and Medicare Advantage; broader combo use likely expands after tafamidis goes generic (~2031) and with nucresiran data.
- Trial positioning: Nucresiran Phase III largely designed as a combination study with robust prior combination data from HELIOS‑B; management emphasized enrollment strength but acknowledged milder baseline population, hence the sample size increase.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Investor impact: Near‑term revenues and guidance hinge on AMVUTTRA launch execution and payer/pricing dynamics; nucresiran and multiple pipeline readouts (HTT, plasminogen, ACVR1C, CAA) are key catalysts for 2030 upside. Expect elevated R&D spend and selective BD to compress near‑term margins versus some consensus, but successful nucresiran launch would materially improve long‑term margins and diversify the business.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Bank of America Global Healthcare Conference 2026
1. Question Answer
Good morning. I'm Tazeen Ahmad. I'm one of the senior biotech analysts at the bank. It's my pleasure to have our next presenting company with us, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. Sitting up here on stage with me is Jeff Poulton, who is, of course, Chief Financial Officer.
Jeff, welcome back to Las Vegas. Thanks for making the trip.
No, I always make the trip to Vegas. I'm always here for this one. So I appreciate the invite.
Yes. We have to continue the tradition. So maybe we can start off with a quick overview of the company in case anyone in the room isn't as familiar with Alnylam and its platform.
Yes. I mean we're a 25-year-old company. It was founded based on Nobel Prize winning science. RNAi is really a new modality that we've developed. It was a long haul to figure out some of the delivery challenges with the technology. But over the last 6 or 7 years now, they figured that out, and we've had a steady stream of products launching into the market. We've built the commercial side of the business, which I know we're going to talk a lot about here in the fireside chat.
We've transitioned the company from being a loss-making company to now being a profitable company. And we've put out new 2030 goals earlier this year to kind of provide a picture of where we think we're taking the company over the next 5 years. We think there's a lot of top line growth ahead. And importantly, now that we're profitable and we've got a real nice trajectory on the top line, we have the ability to significantly invest in the pipeline, which we're taking the opportunity to do because we want to be more than just a TTR company. That's an incredibly important franchise for us, and we intend to invest in that, but we want to be able to grow beyond TTR. And this next 5 years from a pipeline perspective is really about setting up that foundation so that there is growth beyond TTR. So there's a lot to be excited about here, I think.
We agree. So let's talk about AMVUTTRA, which is the key topic of...
Yes.
So you launched the product last year. In fact, it was this time last year, we were sitting here with early innings of the launch. So now we're comfortably into a few quarters. You have -- the sell side had to raise estimates for last year just because of the pace with which sales grew. You have now provided 2026 sales guidance for AMVUTTRA in particular, the range is $4.4 billion to $4.7 billion.
Yes, it's total TTR, it's almost all AMVUTTRA...
[ AMVUTTRA ]...
But just to be clear. Yes. Yes.
And so that's healthy growth over what you reported last year.
Yes. Yes.
And you talked about very early in the year, some of the dynamics that would be impacting 1Q.
Yes.
So now that 1Q is reported and behind us, you've reiterated guide. Maybe talk to us about what you're seeing that's giving you confidence that you could at least reiterate guide given 1Q's growth wasn't necessarily as robust as previous quarters?
Yes. Maybe I'll start there just to recap what we reported and what the kind of pushes and pulls were on Q1 and then talk about the -- we reiterated and why we're confident in our ability to achieve the guidance.
So we reported a couple of weeks ago, we did $910 million in revenue for TTR, which is 150% plus growth year-over-year. We didn't launch until CM in Q2 last year. So obviously, a huge amount of growth compared to Q1 last year.
Relative to the quarterly growth, that's what you're sort of mentioning in terms of lower growth, right? So we did -- in Q4, we did $134 million of TTR growth compared to Q3. And when we were on our year-end call, we talked about Q1 was going to be lower growth than what we delivered in Q4 for a number of reasons. One, outside the U.S., we are actually guiding to a reduction in revenue in TTR from Q4 to Q1, about $25 million is what we said to expect. And a lot of that was going to be driven by pricing in Germany.
So as we launch in new markets outside the U.S., where we've expanded the label to include CM, we are likely adjusting price downward from where it was for PN, right? We've been on the market outside the U.S. in PN for 5 years. And so as you bring the price down to launch in CM, it has an impact on your existing PN business because we got one price for the product.
And so given the size of the market in Germany and given the price adjustment and the size of the price adjustment, that was what was creating the headwind in Q1 because that price adjustment hit right at the end of the fourth quarter, so really impacted Q1.
Now the result in international and Q1 was a little better than down 25%. It was down 7%. The impact in Germany was what we expected. So we did better outside of Germany than what we had anticipated. And a couple of things. One is the CM launch in Japan, which is the first market that we launched in outside the U.S. lapped about middle of last year, is going very well. And actually, they did better in Q1 than what we had anticipated around CM volume. So that was good.
And then the PN business, which is still the main driver outside the U.S. is we're just starting to get going in CM. The PN business is performing well, and that was a little better than we anticipated. So that's why international did a little better than we expected.
In the U.S., we grew $59 million in Q1. We had grown $111 million in Q4. And when we talked about Q1 being a little bit compressed in terms of quarter-on-quarter growth, there were a couple of things that were impacting the U.S. One is insurance reauthorizations, which is pretty typical seasonality for these high-priced meds. And we did see that play out if we looked at demand, meaning shipments to patients for -- to get the injection as well as start forms, which is kind of the prescription or the start to get patients on therapy. It was slower early in Q1 than it was as we were exiting Q1. And so we do think the fact that the offices had some administrative burden earlier in the year was impacting things.
And then the other thing that we highlighted for the U.S. is just the way the product gets ordered and shipped and revenue booked. We have a closed distribution network where we've got one major distribution partner that about 80% of the volume flows through. They order every Monday, every week on a Monday, product ships Tuesday, revenue books on Wednesday. So to the extent that there's a different number of Wednesdays when you're comparing growth across periods, that can have an impact. It just so happened with the way the calendar fell that Q4 last year had 14 Wednesdays and Q1 had 12. So all that, I would say, generally played out like we expected.
So now to your point, we reiterated the guidance. To hit the midpoint of the guidance, we need to average $150 million of growth a quarter the rest of the year. We just did $50 million, $52 million, right? So there needs to be a step-up in growth for us to achieve that. Ex U.S., like we're not going to have this dynamic that we had in Germany, the rest of the year. So we absolutely expect international is going to be contributing to that $150 million in growth on a quarterly basis for the rest of the year. So that will be beneficial to us.
And then in the U.S., we definitely expect a step-up in growth. I think, first of all, I would say the foundation that we've established in the last 12 months or so, particularly around access and logistics around Buy and Bill, we've really reduced the friction. I think first from a payer perspective, we've got about 90% plus of patients that can access AMVUTTRA first line, which was a huge debate as we were coming into the launch. So there's no friction there in terms of patients getting access to the product when the doctors decide to put them on AMVUTTRA.
Patients, the majority of the patients have $0 in out-of-pocket co-pay. So that's not a particular burden that's preventing access to the medicine. And then as it relates to Buy and Bill on the provider network side, we've done a very good job in the health systems that treat a lot of these patients to get AMVUTTRA on formulary, again. So when the doctors write it, the product gets filled.
And we've also created a sort of pretty broad network of third-party infusion clinics, which is really important for a Buy and Bill drug. We've got a couple of thousand clinics that patients could access around the U.S. And that puts most patients within 10 miles of an infusion clinic. And where that's important is if you have a doctor, let's say, that's in the community that's not experienced with Buy and Bill and they don't want to do it, they don't have to Buy and Bill. They refer the patient to the clinic to get the drug administered, they can still treat the patient.
And so we've done that very well. So that foundation is really strong. What we have to do, obviously, now to drive performance for the rest of the year is drive demand, right? And one of the things that we talked about on the call is what we're seeing so far a year into this is when you get a physician to try AMVUTTRA for the first time, it leads them to prescribing more AMVUTTRA. And that doesn't matter if they start in second line or if they start in first line, they use more of the product.
So if we look across the physician universe that's using AMVUTTRA today. We actually feel very good about the share that we have there, but we want more physicians to use AMVUTTRA, right? This is obviously a market that we've launched into -- in the last year, where Pfizer was the only game in town for 5 or 6 years, and that has been the standard of care. So it takes time to change that.
And so from a tactical perspective, commercially, we are really focused now on getting to physicians that are not writing AMVUTTRA at all today and doing the hard work to get them to experience it because we think if we can get them to use it for the first time, they'll use more of it. And that's really going to be critical to the performance of the business for the balance of the year. So that's something I think that we will report on quarterly as that prescriber base and how it's expanding because that's a big focus for us right now.
Okay. So we're halfway into this quarter, can you share any qualitative feedback on what you're seeing?
No. I mean it's -- we're not going to -- I'm not going to comment specifically on Q2. Again, I do think the things that I just highlighted in terms of our expectations of what's going to drive stronger growth the rest of the year are things that we remain confident in, but I'm not going to provide any specifics to this point on Q2 performance.
So it's more based on the confidence that you have in reiterating the guidance. That's the reason for the question.
Yes. I mean -- we remain confident in our ability to achieve the guidance, which is why we reiterated. Obviously, Q2 is going to be important. We'll be halfway through the year. We need to see that growth inflection from Q1 and I'm sure people are going to be very interested to see that.
Do you expect Q1 to have similar dynamics on a go-forward basis?
Probably some of these things like the insurance reauthorization point, I think, is an issue. And that's a bit of a learning probably just because the volumes are more than when we were in PN only that became a little more apparent what the impact on the business was. That's something that I think that will be something every year that we'll see.
Ex U.S., as we get launched in all markets for CM, that dynamic that we had in Germany, that's not going to recur, right? We're launched in Germany now, the U.K. and Italy and Japan. The other major ex U.S. markets that we're still working on to open up access are France and Spain. They'll either be by the end of the year or early next year. So we'll have a lot of that pricing ex U.S. dynamics behind us, and it will really be about driving volume on a go-forward basis.
In general, what type of price discount do you have to take ex U.S.?
It differs by market, right? And it depends where the PN price is. And look, the way this works in most markets outside the U.S. is they will look at your package of clinical data that they'll compare it to the products that are in the market for the same indication. They'll assess whether or not the data is -- looks like better efficacy, similar efficacy and then they'll obviously benchmark your price to those existing products.
So typically, we're launching somewhere around the tafamidis price in these markets, and that's lower than where we were. Again, we were in -- a much rarer, much smaller part of the market in PN. And so price is coming down, but it really does differ market-by-market depending on where the PN price and what the benchmark is for CM. But generally speaking, we're adjusting downward as we launch in CM.
Okay. This market is getting more crowded...
Yes.
For the second to launch, there's ATTRUBY, which is the -- another stabilizer. I think during 1Q, there was a lot of conversations at least with investors about the fact that it looked like it continued to increase its momentum throughout the quarter. Can you talk about the potential differences relative to how that gets reimbursed versus how AMVUTTRA gets reimbursed as to why that's not necessarily the way of comparing?
Yes. I mean I don't know that I'm going to talk a lot about ATTRUBY and their performance and it may or may not what might have impacted that. I mean when I look at -- I think they've done well. I think the launch to me looks consistent in terms of the amount of revenue growth that they've had quarterly. But I don't know that I'm going to get into a sort of a comparison of reimbursement dynamics in Q1 that may have been different for them because I'm not able to speak to that.
Okay. Now if you think about the next data catalyst that's been in the space, that's going to be for Ionis and AstraZeneca and they have a silencer. They were the third ones to go into pivotal. So they took their time to design a big study...
Yes. I think they learned a little bit from the others that went before them. Yes. Yes.
Yes, for sure. So relative to HELIOS-B, they had a bigger study.
Much bigger.
It was -- they were able to stratify based on different patient populations. I think people are particularly interested in seeing what the effect will be when you add a silencer on top of the stabilizer.
Yes.
So can you talk about the different scenarios and the outcomes you think that would be impactful for Alnylam. So there's obviously the blue sky where it looks good and it looks good in all the subgroups. How should we interpret that as to potential if at all pressure on AMVUTTRA?
Yes. I mean I think our expectations are that's going to be a successful study. As you said, it's a much larger study. So there's obviously -- than HELIOS-B was. So there's a powering benefit there. I mean they're more than 1,400 patients. We were 650 patients. And you're right, my understanding is the design of the study has about half of those 1,400 patients are on background TAF. So that's going to be a pretty robust data set in combination.
And in comparison, in HELIOS-B, we had about 40% of the patients that were on background TAF at the start of the study, so 250. So they got a much larger data set there. So the powering is different than what we had.
Look, I think there is a lot of discussion about that. And if they hit in the overall study, which we think they will, and then they hit in that subgroup as well and they have a statistically significant result there, is that going to give them a benefit commercially? We don't think so. We actually do have data in combination in our label, right, because that was a prespecified subgroup. And the results were consistent in that subgroup like they were across all subgroups that were studied in HELIOS-B.
And so physicians -- some physicians are using it in combination today, likely as a result of the data that we have in the label. So if they hit a statistically significant result in that study, our view is that will be sort of viewed as a class benefit, right? And we would get some benefit from that.
There's not a huge amount of combination use going on today. There's some, and that's largely because payers are -- have policies in place, certainly on the commercial side and the Medicare Advantage part of the market, they all have policies that restrict combination use, right, to manage costs.
In the fee-for-service part of the market for us, which is 40% to 50% of our volume, there are no policies that are written to restrict it. So that's probably where we're getting some combination use reimbursed today. But we think the broader unlock for the combination opportunity is when TAF goes generic. And now we've got more clarity on the timing of that, obviously, with the settlements that Pfizer's recently announced. That looks like that will be middle of 2031 before that big unlock occurs.
And that's when I think there's going to be a different dynamic in the market likely and how these products are used together, right? And so we can talk a little bit more about that, too, in terms of some other things that we're working on that might also position us perhaps even more strongly than the way AMVUTTRA is positioned for combination use down the line.
Yes. So we've done survey work on this. It's pretty consistent that doctors feel the best outcome over time is to combine stabilizers with silencers. As you've mentioned, I think the feedback has generally been that silencers are probably not that different from each other that if the study ends up working for one silencer, the interpretation would be that you would have similar efficacy across all drugs in that class.
So we agree on the view that -- and this is probably going to be in the 2030s and after that you see an increase in combination. But to the point you just made, maybe we can talk about some of the efforts that you're undertaking now that could position the company well for that later on.
Yes. So we've got -- look, we're -- we view ourselves as a leader in TTR, and we're investing in this franchise, I think as a leader would do. So we've got a third-generation product that's in the clinic right now, 2 Phase II studies, one for PN and one for CM, this is vutrisiran, right? And this drug has the promise of being a better drug than AMVUTTRA and hopefully better than WAINUA as well.
In terms of knockdown, we see in the Phase I study that we get to 95% knockdown. AMVUTTRA is more like mid-80s. And actually, the spread, the variability around that 95% is tighter than the variability around the 85%. And we know, particularly on the PN side, when we get deeper knockdown, it leads to better efficacy in the disease. And so we're hopeful that this study because of the deeper knockdown is going to show better efficacy. So that's kind of point one.
Point two, with this product is it's got longer duration. So this is a once every 6-month subcu administration. AMVUTTRA is once a quarter. WAINUA is once a month, right? So that would give us a real convenience advantage from a patient perspective. And we absolutely know patients would much prefer fewer injections than more. And so that would be positive to uptake.
And then lastly, from an economic perspective for us, this is pretty meaningful that there's no royalty burden on this product like we have on AMVUTTRA, which is close to 30%, given that there's a tiering of 15% to 30%. But given the tiering and the size of the commercial opportunity, like the weighted average is going to be pretty close to 30%.
And so just to touch on the -- what that could mean for us economically and sort of margin-wise longer term, we've guided with our Alnylam 2030 set of goals to have operating margins around 2030 -- I'm sorry, around 30% across the period out to 2030. That's weighed down by the gross margin because of the royalty we own on AMVUTTRA that's about 75% across the period.
So if vutrisiran delivers on this promise, right, of having better efficacy, more convenient and we get that into the market, that's going to be a very attractive profile, and I think it's going to drive nice uptake. And that really then unlocks a much lower gross margin and more significant operating margin post 2030. And we've talked about it, we see a clear path to mid-40s on operating margin. So this is an important product for us.
But let me talk a little bit about, again, the study, the CM study that we're running for that program, vutrisiran. We expect that's a study that -- it's an outcome study. And one of the things that we did with that study, and this is frankly, learning from HELIOS-B was rather than a time-bound endpoint, we've got an event-driven endpoint there, right? So that we sort of were more comfortable with the powering in the study as a result of that because patients are becoming diagnosed earlier and earlier, kind of less advanced in the disease, event rates are lower. So we've got an event-driven endpoint. I think that makes us feel good about the powering.
One of the things that we just announced on the Q1 call is that we've decided to increase the size of that study. We initially announced it as about a 1,250-patient study. And in the protocol, we had given ourselves the option to upsize that by 500. And we chose to do that and announced that on the call. The reason we announced it when we did is because the enrollment is going very, very well on that study. And we didn't announce it and make this decision pretty soon. That study was going to complete enrollment very soon to 1,250.
So we've decided to upsize the study. That's mostly around managing time risk with the study because it's an event-driven study and the patients that we're enrolling in the study are milder, similar to HELIOS-B, maybe just a little bit milder, but there's uncertainty around event rates and how long will it take once you get it fully enrolled to hit that number of event -- endpoints. And so having more patients in the study obviously gives you an opportunity to accrue more events faster.
So we feel actually -- even though we've upsized the study and we've got a little bit more enrolling to do, our confidence level in 2030 is higher. And that -- now that we know when TAF is going to go generic to have that product in the market that will have a huge amount of combination data, like that's largely going to be a combination study. We'll have enough monotherapy patients in the study as well to have that part of the label. But that's mostly a 1,750 patient going to be a combination study.
And so we'll have that data. We'll have -- we're assuming that the study -- the events accrue the way we think they will. We'll have that product in the market before tafamidis goes generic now given the timing of that. And again, if this becomes largely a combination market, that's good that we're going to have that product positioned in the market before TAF goes generic.
So we're excited about that. And I think that was a meaningful change. I don't know that the market completely understood what we did and why. So I wanted to be clear about that. That's mostly about managing time line risk in the study and getting to the number of events that we need to have to complete the study. And I think the fact that it's enrolling as rapidly as it is, is a very good sign.
Okay. So you talked about making this available and that could be attractive for patients. How are you thinking about switching patients from AMVUTTRA to nucre when it does come out?
Yes.
How would the dynamics of that work?
I mean -- I talked about the potential for the profile having -- this is a progressive fatal disease. So if we have efficacy data that looks better, than the existing silencers that are in the market. I think that's going to drive uptake, added to the fact that if it's twice a year rather than 4x a year or 12x a year, I think it's going to drive -- it's going to be an attractive profile for patients. And I think that will drive a lot of uptake for us.
Okay. Maybe another question about near-term competition. Assuming that Astra has positive data that -- they apply and then they launch next year, what is the concern that they might try to use price as a way of trying to gain traction in the market?
Yes. I mean they're -- today, they're a Part D product. They're not in the market for CM. They're in the market for PN. And in the U.S., they're actually priced higher than we are. I think, close to 10% higher.
We're already competing against 2 Part D products, both stabilizers, and they're both at a lower price point than we are today. And I talked earlier about access for us. That fact that there's 2 products on the market that are at a lower price point has not impacted our ability to get AMVUTTRA to patients on a first-line basis, right? More than 90% of patients have access to it.
So I don't think having a third Part D product that's at a lower price is actually going to change the dynamics that we're dealing with today and meaningfully impact access to AMVUTTRA. So again, we feel comfortable with the access dynamics at this point in time. I don't think that's going to change dramatically when they launch.
Okay. And then on discontinuations, are they tracking in line to what you would expect?
Yes. This is one of the things I believe that's underappreciated in the value of our medicine. We've got adherence and compliance on our drug that are more than 90%. And generally speaking, the biggest reasons why patients discontinue taking the therapy is because they pass away, right? This is a fatal disease ultimately.
And I think when you compare that just in general to patients that are on products that require them to take daily pills or sometimes -- in the case of one of our competitors, twice a day to take pills, patients even with these kinds of diseases are not compliant, right? And we have the benefit of very good compliance.
I think partly because it's fairly convenient once a quarter, which aligns with physician visits that they have. I think one of the things that we also do very well is we've got a patient services hub that supports these patients and is actively working with patients to make sure that on a quarterly basis that they're getting access to the medicine that they need. But ultimately, that can lead to better outcomes just being compliant.
And so I think that's a big advantage for us, and that's something that we're going to continue to really focus on to make sure that patients are staying on the drug. And obviously, patients staying on drug and getting it every quarter also has a beneficial impact to us in terms of consistent revenue.
Okay. So let's talk about the rest of the pipeline. So maybe just remind us of what data updates do you expect from the earlier pipe...?
Yes. I think we've got 3 readouts in the second half of the year that are worth paying attention to. Maybe we'll start with our Huntington program. This is a program that we're -- that's in a Phase I study that we're developing in partnership with Regeneron.
We've got an exon 1 targeting approach here. We're running a Phase I study that's primarily looking at safety in PK/PD, like how much knockdown can we get. We think for a variety of reasons, we believe we may have the right approach here to treat this disease. But what we really want to learn from this study, frankly, is what level of knockdown can we get hopefully, safely and form a dose that we would then take forward into a study that we would really be looking at efficacy. So we'll have that initial data in that program later this year.
Our bleeding disorder program that's targeting plasminogen, and this is a program that we think could ultimately be a pipeline and a product type opportunity where we have the ability across a variety of bleeding disorders to sort of improve clot stability with the genetics on this particular target without increasing the risk of thrombosis. And there's hundreds of bleeding disorders that very few of have treatments today.
The first indication that we've got a Phase II ongoing right now is in a disease HHT. I'm not going to pronounce it because I'll get it wrong, but that will have a Phase II readout that's a proof-of-concept readout where we're really looking at -- we're looking at the number of nose bleeds in that study. So we'll have that in the second half of the year.
In addition to we have an ongoing Phase I study in healthy volunteers. We'll have some additional data. We're actually expecting to start second indication Phase II with that same therapy this year. And so we'll actually do a -- we're going to do an R&D type webinar on this program later in the second quarter. So pay attention to that. We'll put some news out on that. I think this is an important one that the market probably isn't as educated on as we would like them to be. So we're going to spend some time talking about the product as well as the market opportunity that we see for that later in Q2.
And then...
Do you know how many -- sorry to interrupt you, but how many HHT patients are there?
I think in the U.S., from a prevalence perspective, the number is about 70,000. Now all those patients aren't diagnosed and treated today. There are actually no on-label treatments for this disease today. This is one of the things I think that we'll educate on in the webinar in terms of what's the burden of treatment associated with this disease. It's a pretty horrific disease in terms of impact on quality of life. And so we think it's an interesting opportunity. So more to come on that in the second quarter.
And then the last thing, I think, from a readout perspective is our initial obesity program, where we're targeting adipose tissue to go after ACVR1C. So this will -- again, this will be early Phase I data where we'll get PK/PD information, and we'll have that by the end of the year as well.
And how big is that opportunity?
I mean, obesity is huge, right? But this is lots of questions about some of these targets and some of the competitors have these about how much monotherapy weight loss can you get? How would you position these? Would these be monotherapy? Would they be combination? I think more to come on that in terms of our perspective on that.
Okay. And then last question on cash.
What was that?
The balance sheet?
Yes. I mean the good thing is I don't have to think about that quite as much as I used to. We ended the year with around $3 billion in cash, and we're going to start adding cash to the balance sheet as we go now that we're profitable, which is a nice position to be in.
Questions about capital allocation and that has start to come up more and more as you start to see a bigger cash balance. And we've talked about the priorities right now are 100% TTR launch and continue to invest appropriately behind that to drive demand. So that's a priority.
And then on innovation, certainly, internal innovation is the priority, but we have talked about starting to add external innovation into the mix as well. So I do think business development is an area that we will focus and we will start to spend some dollars on external innovation as well, likely earlier stage things. I think in particular, one of the areas that we're looking for some help externally is on delivery, right? We're trying to get to 10 tissues by 2030, and there's a lot of interesting innovation going on across the industry in delivery. And so that could be an area that we would invest from an external innovation standpoint.
Okay. And that's potentially near term, but if you see something...
Yes. I mean we're building the -- I would say we're building the BD muscle now. We've hired a new Head of BD in the last 6 months, and she's helping us build that team internally and sort of build the muscle on how you do these things. So we're starting down that path.
Okay. Perfect. With that, we're out of time. So Jeff, thank you.
Thank you.
[indiscernible] time with us.
Appreciate it.
Thanks, everyone, for joining.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Bank of America Global Healthcare Conference 2026
Fireside chat centered on AMVUTTRA commercial momentum, reiterated 2026 sales guide, and strategic pipeline push with upsized vutrisiran study.
🎯 Key Message
- Central: Management reiterated confidence in AMVUTTRA sales guidance despite a softer Q1, citing one-time calendar and pricing timing effects and seasonality; they are simultaneously reinvesting profits to build a multi-product future beyond the transthyretin (TTR) franchise.
⚡ Strategic Highlights
- Commercial: Access strong—>90% of patients can get AMVUTTRA first-line and most have $0 copay; buy-and-bill and third‑party infusion clinic network expand reach and reduce friction.
- Prescriber focus: Priority is converting non‑prescribing physicians; trials show first use increases future prescribing.
- Vutrisiran: Third‑gen candidate shows ~95% RNA knockdown in early data, six‑month dosing and no royalty burden, and could materially improve margins if successful.
- Capital: ~$3B cash at year end; priorities are TTR launch, internal innovation, selective external BD (delivery technologies).
🔭 New Information
- Study upsizing: Vutrisiran cardiomyopathy outcome study was upsized (protocol option exercised) toward ~1,750 patients to reduce time risk on event accrual given rapid enrollment.
- Timing clarity: Management reiterated tafamidis (stabilizer) patent expiry dynamics point to a broader combination market after mid‑2031; no Q2 specifics disclosed.
❓ Analyst Q&A
- Q1 softness: Explained by German price adjustments on cardiomyopathy launches, U.S. insurance reauthorizations (seasonal) and calendar/order-booking cadence; management expects a step‑up in later quarters.
- Competition & combo: If third‑party silencers (e.g., Ionis/AZ) show positive combo data, management views combo success as a class benefit and expects the big commercial unlock after tafamidis goes generic.
- Adherence & switches: High adherence (>90%) and quarterly dosing help retention; switching dynamics to future agents hinge on efficacy, dosing frequency and economics.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Conclusion: The presentation reinforced confidence in AMVUTTRA’s commercial foundation and reiterated guidance while highlighting pipeline investments (notably vutrisiran upsizing) that could drive longer‑term growth and margins; near‑term investor attention should be on Q2 demand inflection, vutrisiran enrollment/readout timelines, and how share gains from expanded prescriber adoption play out.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Ian, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Q1 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn this call over to the company. Please go ahead.
Good morning. I'm Christine Akinc, Chief Corporate Communications Officer at Alnylam, with me today are Yvonne Greenstreet, Chief Executive Officer; Tolga Tanguler, Chief Commercial Officer; Pushkal Garg, Chief Research and Development Officer; and Jeff Poulton, Chief Financial Officer.
For those of you participating via conference call, the accompanying slides can be accessed by going to the Events section of the Investors page of our website, investors.alnylam.com/events. During today's call as outlined in Slide 2, Alnylam [indiscernible] our introductory remarks and provide some general context. Tolga will provide an update on our global commercial progress. Pushkal will review pipeline updates, clinical progress and upcoming milestones, and Jeff will review our financials and guidance before we open the call to your questions.
I'd like to remind you that this call will contain remarks concerning Alnylam's future expectations, plans and prospects, which constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the safe harbor provision under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those in our most recent periodic report on file with the SEC.
In addition, any forward-looking statements represent our views only as of the date of this recording and should not be relied upon as representing our views of any subsequent date. We specifically disclaim any obligation to update such statements. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Yvonne. Yvonne?
Thanks, Christine, and thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. The first quarter of 2026 demonstrated continued strength of the business and represents the type of execution that will drive continued growth at Alnylam. Our leadership in TTR amyloidosis was on display, having achieved over $900 million in total net revenues from AMVUTTRA and ONPATTRO combined. We also entered into exciting new collaborations that we expect to drive TTR disease awareness and diagnosis and improve overall care pathways for patients.
On the R&D side, we continue to progress our deep pipeline of investigational medicines, including the presentation of impactful data for vutrisiran and [indiscernible] at ACC. We also initiated a Phase I trial of ARN-2232, which is our first adipose directed RNAi therapeutic and targets ACVR1. And on the financial front, the more than $1 billion in combined net product revenues generated in Q1, Alnylam's first quarter, exceeding the threshold in our history an important milestone.
We're also reiterating our full year financial guidance, reflecting continued confidence in the AMVUTTRA launch and the strength of our overall portfolio. [indiscernible] of biotech with a differentiated model built on a proven durable innovation engine and strong commercial execution, positioning us for sustained long-term growth. As the leader in RNAi therapeutics, we have established a modular reproducible approach to drug development and a product engine that has consistently translated scientific innovation into successful method. This high-yielding platform, combined with our outsized historical probability of success relative to the industry will be key to driving future growth. That capability is reflected in a deep pipeline of more than 25 programs currently in clinical development with continued expansion into new indications and therapeutic areas along with evolving platform capabilities.
Lastly, today, there are 6 Alnylam invented medicines that are collectively generating several billion dollars in annual revenues reaching hundreds of thousands of patients around the world. My colleagues will outline for you the commercial, R&D and financial progress we made in the first quarter of 2026. All of this progress builds our momentum towards accelerating innovation and scaling our impact as we look to deliver on our recently announced 5-year vision Alnylam 2030.
These ambitions are anchored in 3 strategic pillars. The first is to establish global leadership in TTR while continuing to build a durable franchise. Our second pillar focuses on growing through sustainable innovation where we aim to deliver therapies to not only slow the progression of the [indiscernible] but prevent halt or of asset. And the third pillar is scaling with discipline and agility to enable durable profitable growth. Taken together, our nylon 2030 represents our strategy to become the leading science-driven fully integrated global biopharmaceutical company and to maximize the potential of RNAi therapeutics for patients.
With that, let me now turn the call over to Tolga for a review of our first quarter commercial performance. Tolga?
Thanks, Ivan, and good morning. I'm pleased to share our continued progress in bringing Alnylam's therapies to patients globally. Q1 was another strong quarter of commercial execution and marked our first quarter exceeding $1 billion in product revenue, Specifically, we delivered $1.03 billion in combined net product revenues, up 121% year-over-year and 4% over Q4 2025.
While our TTR franchise continues to be our primary growth engine, we continue to see consistently strong performance in our rare disease business. So let's start there. Our rare disease portfolio continues to deliver meaningful impact for patients and consistent performance for our business. We generated $126 million in rare disease net revenue up 15% year-over-year. Growth was driven by increased patient demand, partially offset by higher gross to net deductions across U.S. and international markets.
Now turning to our TTR franchise. One year into the ATTR-CM launch, Alnylam continues to show strong momentum. Global TTR net revenues reached $910 million in Q1 and up 6% from Q4 and 153% year-over-year. In the U.S., TTR revenues grew 9% versus Q4 and more than 230% year-over-year. reflecting continued growth in patient demand. The $59 million in U.S. revenue growth over Q4 was achieved despite fewer Q1 shipping weeks and customary insurance reauthorization dynamics earlier in the year, anticipated headwinds that we shared with you on our February earnings call.
Access remained broad, pull-through was strong and adherence exceeded 90%. Outside the U.S., revenues declined $7 million from Q4, primarily reflecting our previously announced updated pricing in Germany following the ATTR-CM launch, but grew 35% year-over-year. Importantly, international TTR revenue outperformed our Q1 expectations shared in February, primarily due to continued strength in Japan, where our CM launch execution remains on track with leading analogs as well as strength in PN performance across our international markets.
This strength provided more balance to the quarter than anticipated as we did see the expected headwinds from the price adjustment in Germany. We remain confident in our 2026 TTR revenue guidance as we continue to expect more substantial quarter-over-quarter growth in TTR revenues, both in the U.S. and across the world over the balance of the year. As we move into the next phase of U.S. ATTR-CM launch, our focus is grounded in the strong foundation established in 2025.
First, physician preference and utilization. Alnylam's clinical profile has driven a strong and compelling first-line positioning with strong preference demonstrated by physicians who have experience using it; second, access and affordability. Our access has improved versus 2025 and continues to be durable with over 90% patients covered with first-line access and most facing 0 in out-of-pocket costs. Third, side of care infrastructure. We built a robust provider network designed to deliver a seamless patient experience. These fundamentals enabled a highly differentiated launch with rapid uptake and strong utilization across lines of therapy.
Importantly, our initial success has shown that physician experience with Auto leads to deeper and sustained use over time. As highlighted during our TTR investor event, moving forward, we're focused on the following 3 indicators of continued launch success. First, prescriber base expansion. We've already built a large and expanding base with more than 1,200 unique new U.S. prescribers since last March.
When we look at prescribing trends on an individual health care professional basis, we generally see that initial utilization of AMVUTTRA by a new prescriber is relatively balanced between first and second lines of therapy. Second line use is being driven primarily by moving that prescribers existing base of patients progressing on stabilizer on to AMVUTTRA, either a switch or combo therapy. Over time, as the existing base of stabilizer patients is transitioned.
We generally see that prescribers new second-line scripts reduced to a normalized level. Importantly, health care professionals experience with AMVUTTRA breeds a greater number and proportion of new scripts in the first-line setting. So our experience with AMVUTTRA has translated into a durable preference, and we also see significant opportunity coming from expanding the number of prescribers. We will do this by increasing engagement with physicians who don't yet have experience with AMVUTTRA, reinforcing the role of AMVUTTRA across the full patient journey and maintaining seamless patient access.
Second, sustained category growth. ATTR-CM remains significantly underdiagnosed and undertreated with an estimated 200,000 patients in the U.S. and more than 80% of still untreated. We are addressing this gap directly as part of our TTR leadership agenda, advancing practical, AI-enabled partnerships to facilitate earlier diagnosis and treatment. Collaborations with [indiscernible] others as well as support for an initiative with American Heart Association, or embedding AI diagnostics into real-world care pathways, expanding patient identification, and accelerating access to therapy.
Third, [indiscernible] and persistence supported by quarterly dosing and actual patient adherence. Pushkal will share some more color in a moment, but recently presented real-world data demonstrate greater than 90% adherence to vutrisiran over more than a 2-year period. This profile translates into [indiscernible] patients and by extension into sustained revenue which is central to any long-term growth outlook.
Online's global footprint is enabling strong execution on international market access for Aura reflected in a series of positive reimbursement milestones across key markets. In Europe, we're seeing favorable health technology assessment outcomes and reimbursement momentum, including recent launches in Austria, the U.K. Switzerland and Italy, supporting broader patient eligibility and more streamlined treatment pathways.
Taken together, these developments reinforce the growing global recognition of the value of AMVUTTRA and positions are slow to expand patient reach around the world. With that, I'll turn things over to Pushkal.
Thank you, Tolga, and good morning, everyone. Alnylam undoubtedly has one of the most robust pipelines in biotech with over 25 clinical programs, spanning multiple therapeutic areas across rare specialty and prevalent indications, representing a tremendous opportunity to improve patient health and create value in the years ahead.
Over the next few moments, I'll double-click on some of these programs to highlight some key near-term value drivers in the pipeline. In support of our ongoing efforts to demonstrate AMVUTTRA's unique profile that we believe supports first-line use, we shared new data on the drug's impact on patients with ATTR-CM at the recent American College Cardiology Annual Meeting. As Toga briefly mentioned, a retrospective cohort study of approximately 4 years of real-world data in patients with transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis indicated high adherence and persistence to vutrisiran treatment. Over the treatment period, greater than 93% of patients were adherent to vutrisiran, defined as 80% or more days covered by vutrisiran and over 85% remained on therapy for more than a year.
These data stand in contrast to the low adherence and persistence we've seen with many oral therapies and support the potential for vutrisiran's clinical trial benefits to translate into a real-world setting. In another analysis, we looked at diastolic dysfunction, which is known to be prognostic of poor outcomes in patients with ATTR-CM. The post-hoc analysis of HELIOS-B assessed outcomes at month 30 in patients who had evaluable diastolic dysfunction grades, DDG at baseline. There were 3 key findings.
First, higher DDG at baseline corresponded with adverse outcomes in ATTR-CM in the HELIOS-B study. Second, vutrisiran was associated with a lower risk of worsening DDG and compared to patients receiving placebo. And finally, vutrisiran reduced the risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events during the double-blind period, irrespective of patients' baseline DDG. Together, these data continue to underscore the differentiated and substantial impact of vutrisiran in ATTR cardiomyopathy. We also continue to advance our next-generation TTR [indiscernible] in the TRITON Phase III program. As a reminder, interim Phase I results with nucresiran demonstrated greater than 95% mean TTR knockdown and were supportive of a twice-yearly dosing regimen.
TRITON-CM is a randomized double-blind events-driven outcome study of nucresiran versus placebo. We initiated the study last year and are encouraged by the very strong interest we've seen from both investigators and patients who wish to participate. As a result, enrollment is proceeding faster than expected. In addition, and as anticipated, the patients enrolling in this study have somewhat milder disease on average, than those enrolled in HELIOS-B due to greater disease awareness and earlier diagnosis around the world.
Our study already includes a built-in safeguard against potentially low event rates in that it is event-driven. In other words, we will continue the study until we have enough endpoint events to ensure sufficient study power. Today, we are announcing that we will take advantage of the fast pace of enrollment to utilize a prespecified option in our protocol to expand enrollment by approximately 500 patients or from 1,250 to about 1,750 in total. This increase further mitigates the risk of low event rates, while maintaining or potentially even accelerating time lines for this important study.
Given the rapid pace of enrollment and the anticipated accrual of endpoint events we still project to launch by 2030, assuming positive data and regulatory approval. In addition, the TRITON-PN Phase III trial in hereditary ATTR polyneuropathy is also ongoing and if successful, has the potential to support approval in this indication by 2028.
As we look ahead to the next period of R&D evolution at Alnylam were guided by our new Alnylam 2030 set of 5-year goals specifically the pillar of growth through sustainable innovation. As a reminder, we've committed to delivering at least 2 new transformative medicines beyond TTR with blockbuster potential. We also anticipate achieving RNAi delivery to at least 10 tissue types with over 40 programs in the clinic by the end of 2030.
And lastly, we aim to invest approximately 30% of revenues in non-GAAP R&D through this period to support our next wave of medicines. We're on our way to achieving these goals and look forward to many clinical readouts in the coming quarters and years to unlock these transformative programs, which will propel Alnylam into its next phases of growth.
As for 2026, we plan to share updates from across the pipeline as outlined here. In the first half of the year, we expect to complete enrollment in the Capricorn 1 Phase II trial of mevelsiran in cerebral amyloid angiopathy and to initiate a Phase II trial of [indiscernible] in Alzheimer's disease. We're also on track to initiate a Phase II trial of ALN-6400 in a second bleeding disorder. In addition to these study milestones, we also look forward to several clinical readouts from 3 different programs in the second half of the year.
For ALN-6400 in bleeding disorders, we plan to share Phase I data from healthy volunteers in Phase II results in patients with hereditary hemorrhagic tolangictasia. We also plan to share Phase I data for ALN-HTT02 in patients with Huntington's disease and ALN-2232 in development for obesity and weight management. Within our robust pipeline are several programs, each with multibillion-dollar potential that we believe represents the next wave of transformative medicines. ALN-6400, which we believe has potential application across a wide range of bleeding disorders, [indiscernible], which has the potential to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events by providing continuous control of blood pressure and ALN-HTT which we are starting to treat Huntington's disease are among the many opportunities in our pipeline that may improve human health and accelerate growth in the years to come.
Given these are novel therapeutics that have the potential to change the practice of medicine, I'm excited to announce that we will be discussing each of these programs in greater detail during upcoming webinars starting this summer. Those of you who have followed Alnynam for a while may recall our RNA Roundtable series in which we spotlight key pipeline programs of interest in discussed disease areas, treatment landscape, unmet needs and the differentiated impact possible with RNA therapeutics. We'll be using a similar format to deep dive into each of these programs and outline the opportunities this summer. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks. With that, let me now turn it over to Jeff to review our financial results and 2026 guidance. Jeff?
Thanks, Pushkal, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be presenting a summary of Alnylam's first quarter 2026 financial results and discussing our full year guidance. Let's begin with a summary of our P&L results for Q1 2026. The Total global net product revenues for the first quarter were more than $1 billion or 121% growth versus Q1 last year, driven by the continued uptake of AMVUTTRA and ATTR cardiomyopathy. We achieved $910 million of TTR revenue in the first quarter, a $52 million increase versus Q4, consistent with the Q1 phasing expectations we discussed on our year-end earnings call in February. For the first quarter, collaboration revenue was $82 million or a 17% decrease compared with the same period last year. The decrease was primarily driven by a $30 million milestone payment received from [indiscernible] in Q1 2025.
Royalty revenue for the first quarter was $49 million representing an 85% increase compared to the first quarter of 2025, driven by higher global [indiscernible] sales. Gross margin on product sales was 80% for the first quarter representing a 5% decrease compared with Q1 last year. The decrease in margin was primarily driven by increased royalties on AMVUTTRA as higher revenues in 2026 and resulted in an increase in the average royalty rate payable to Sanofi compared with the same period last year.
Additionally, a quick reminder that the royalty rate we pay Sanofi on sales of AMVUTTRA resets each calendar year. As a result, as AMVUTTRA's sales increase over the course of the year, we anticipate that the average royalty rate on sales of AMVUTTRA paid to Sanofi will increase, resulting in a decrease in quarterly gross margin on product sales over the course of the year.
Our non-GAAP R&D expenses of $335 million increased 39% compared to last year, primarily driven by the costs associated with our ongoing 3 Phase III clinical studies including the Xenith cardiovascular outcomes trial for zalbisiran and the TRITON-CN and PN studies for nucresiran. Beyond the pivotal programs, we continue to increase investment to support important programs for bleeding disorders, Huntington's disease and CAA as well as early pipeline investment to deliver new INDs.
Non-GAAP SG&A expenses of $283 million increased 36% compared to last year, driven primarily by investments in support of the AMVUTTRA ATTR cardiomyopathy launch in the U.S. and in the international markets as well as increased employee compensation costs and other scaling investments to support the organization. We achieved non-GAAP operating income of $339 million, which represents a more than 4x increase compared to last year, driven primarily by the strong top line results that I previously highlighted.
We continued to deliver profitability on both the GAAP and non-GAAP net income basis in the first quarter, which represents our third consecutive quarter of both GAAP and non-GAAP profitability. Finally, we ended the first quarter with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $3 billion compared with $2.9 billion as of December 31, 2025. The primary driver of the increase in cash during the quarter was our strong operating performance.
Now turning to our full year guidance. Today, we are reiterating our 2026 guidance as presented during our last earnings call, and as summarized on our guidance slide. Notably, on TTR revenue, as Tolga previously highlighted, our guidance continues to reflect an assumption of significantly higher quarter-on-quarter revenue growth for the balance of the year in order to achieve our $4.4 billion to $4.7 billion TTR product sales guidance.
Let me now turn it back to Christine to coordinate our Q&A session. Christine?
Thank you, Jeff. Operator, we will now open the call for questions. To those out then, who would like to ask you to limit yourself to 1 question each and then get back in the queue if you have additional questions.
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Ritu Baral with TD Cowen.
2. Question Answer
So Tolga, I wanted to ask you a little more about your comments around first-line use and second-line use. You said that they were balanced, and I believe you mentioned that use improves with experience. And then you said something about second-line use reducing to normal levels. What is that sort of experience that you're seeing? Is it that doctors are starting with second line? And then with increased exposure and experience willing to start patients on first-line or are they starting on first line? And how much does your detailing sort of detailing contribute to it or combination therapy contribute to it as well.
There's quite a lot in that question, and we'll try to plan to unpack it as we go. But just before I turn it over to Tolga, I mean, just kind of reiterate our confidence really in the fundamentals of the AMVUTTRA launch. And we're really pleased with the progress that we've made as we march towards achieving our goal of TTR leadership by revenues through this next period. But Tolga, let's dive a little bit into resides.
Sure. No, I think it's an important dynamic and happy to expand more on that. So what we're really describing is the natural evolution of second-line dynamics as the launch progresses. As new prescribers begin using AMVUTTRA, essentially initial utilization is typically balanced between first and second line. early second-line use is obviously driven by physicians treating patients progressing on stabilizers. They had these patients that were already progressing in the last 5, 6 years. and they were waiting for a product with essentially in our target of mechanism of action. So over time, as those patients have transitioned second-line volume normalizes. At the same time, what we're really excited about is the growing physician experience has been leading to increased adoption in the first-line setting. I think that's a really important element to highlight. So we see this as a really positive and expected progression that you would see the early in the launch dynamics. Today, the business is modestly way towards first line. while second line remains an important and ongoing contributor to growth. And obviously, we are -- [indiscernible] we're talking makers of action, we are the -- we have the highest share in that respect. But what's also important is this is a gradual shift in mix as physicians move from early adoption to more established prescribing patterns. And from a strategic standpoint that you asked, -- our focus remains on strengthening first-line positioning, which in turn supports both broader and more durable utilization, including second line given our differentiated product profile. So for us, the key driver from here is really going to be about expanding the prescriber base, bringing more physicians into the AMVUTTRA experience, which we consistently see that translates into deeper and early line use over time.
Our next question comes from the line of Paul Matteis with Stifel.
I was wondering, Jeff, if you could try to help do some math for us on the call as it relates to the headwind this quarter from selling weeks? I know you talked about 2 [indiscernible] weeks, but I think that might be related to 1 specific. And then conversely, maybe if there was any sort of inventory headwind or benefit this quarter and sort of when you net out and take a step back, how would you sort of simplify for us what we're seeing in terms of actual demand growth from 4Q to 1Q for AMVUTTRA in the U.S.
Great. Thanks for the question, Paul. Look, good question. I think Q1 played out generally in line with our expectations in the quarter. If you look at the U.S. results, $59 million in growth. That was primarily demand-driven. There was some positive inventory impacts in the quarter, but that was offset by pricing, which is continuing to trend in the direction that we expect. Just to remind you on the things that we talked about impacting the quarter, insurance reauthorizations in the U.S. were part of the story. And we did see that. I mean, if we look at demand and start form generation across the quarter. January was the lowest, and we saw sequential improvement in February and March. So that played out as we expected. And then you hit on the ordering patterns, yes, that's correct. The number of Wednesdays in the quarter actually does make an impact in terms of comparisons quarter-to-quarter just because of the way the ordering works in the U.S. So the way things work in the U.S. for us is there's one wholesale distributor that we work with that drives about 80% of the volume. They order every week on Monday in the U.S., product ships on Tuesday and inventories received and is recognized on Wednesday. Just the way with the calendar fell last year and then into this year, there were 14 Wednesdays in Q4 last year and 12 in Q1. So that contributed. Look, if you looked at the TTR growth last year in the U.S., it was $111 million and again $59 million in Q1. So I think, again, this all played out as we expected.
I just wanted to clarify on the selling weeks. We have that dynamic at like close to an 11% sequential headwind. Is that an exaggeration of [indiscernible] dynamic or kind of roughly where we should be modeling it?
Yes. Again, I'm not going to get into maybe the specific detail on that, Paul, per your question, but it did have an impact and which was one of the reasons why we flagged it on the call in February. Just thinking about going forward, right, for Q2, there will be 13 Wednesdays. Q3 will have 14 in and then Q4 will have 13, right? And so over the course of the year, there's 52 Wednesdays, but that's how they're going to fall. So again, it's one of the things that drives confidence in our view in terms of growth going forward, higher levels of growth. on a quarterly basis going forward in the U.S.
If I could add in terms of the -- how the quarter should be characterized from a demand perspective, it was really largely driven by demand. So we did have some inventory benefit, but that was really offset by the gross to net adjustments. So net-net, this was really about demand growth.
That's spot on. Thanks for providing some color to the quarter. I mean, we were really pleased to be able to maintain patients how well the authorizations went, how patients were able to kind of get access with our commitment to make it as easy as possible for them. So we're seeing kind of good progress from 2025 to 23.6%.
Our next question comes from the line of Tazeen Ahmad with Bank of America.
There's a study coming up for a competitor who has the [ silencer ]. I think there's a lot of eyes on the portion specifically related to adding that [ silencer ] on to a stabilizer. So I wanted to get your thoughts if that portion of the study proves to be robust, is there any reason to think that a result like that would not have been replicated with Ambu you had designed that trial. And looking ahead, how do you think physicians would interpret that type of data? Would that be specific to the target set? Or do you think it would be validating for silencers overall?
Thanks, Tazeen. Maybe I'll take a question. Tolga may have something to add as well at the end. Yes. Look, I think we're obviously looking to see the cardiac transform results as they come out. I think we're expecting a little later this year based on the announcements yesterday. But I think as it relates to the combination portion of that study, yes, it's -- they've got an upsized portion in that study. And we fully expect that, that study will be positive and that those results are positive. The reason we believe that is because we have the HELIOS-B results which have already shown that the silencing mechanism is effective in monotherapy and in combination therapy when it added on a background of stabilizer. We saw strong results in that category. It was not powered specifically for that group, but we saw additive benefit that was commensurate with the benefit we saw as a monotherapy. And that was realized then in the product labeling as well, where it was recognized that there was equal effectiveness on or off [indiscernible] and that's captured in the take in the label. And so we're obviously able to communicate that appropriately with prescribers and Tolga can talk more about that dynamic. So I do expect that they'll see a [indiscernible] benefit there, but I think it really just enhances and further validates the signal that we've already seen with this drug. The other thing I would just mention is that we talked today about the nuu study with TRITON-CM. And that is going to -- as we've talked about before, be primarily a study adding on top of patients who are on a stabilizer. And with today's announcement, I think we'll have perhaps the largest experience coming out of that study. So a very, very rich data set showing the benefits of adding a silencer on top of a stabilizer. So I think we're looking forward to those results as well. So I think we're very well positioned, both for how treatment patterns are today and how they're going to evolve over time. But Tolga, you have anything to add.
Making a kind of commercial comment [indiscernible] here, too. I think you've kind of focus very well on how we think about apron. But I think it's worth referencing our success in the PN indication. I mean, I think as you have seen in PN, there are 2 real dynamics that works in our favor. First and foremost, obviously, we have a significant. We had a significant lead time when an air plant came out in PN. And what you now see is we have a pretty robust and durable market share in terms of new patient starts over 75%. And then the good news is the category continues to grow in PN. And when you actually translated into the CM, which is a much larger obviously category, when you have a deeper, more durable and sustained [indiscernible], which we already have AMVUTTRA, it's going to be only advanced by nucresiran, hopefully. We are really well positioned given the lead time that we have. And again, from a label perspective, we already have a combination use in our label. We really feel good about another study actually confirming some of the benefits of the silencer class.
Our next question comes from the line of Konstantinos Biliouris with Oppenheimer.
Congrats on the quarter. Maybe I'd like to reverse [indiscernible] question and ask about the scenario that cardio transform sales to show an effect under the [indiscernible] cobalt nurse can demonstrate an effect under the stabilizer silence combo. Do you think that your competitor will be able to leverage [indiscernible] will be specific to nucresiran because of the potency and the durability of the drug.
Yes, there's a lot of scenarios there to work through. I appreciate the nature of your question. I don't know that I can answer it directly. Look, I think Again, I think there are commonalities between the plan approach and what we're doing in that they both knock down TTR, although at the same time, they are different molecules and they use different mechanisms. We use in our AI mechanism, they use an ASO mechanism. They're knockdown tends to happen a little bit longer over time based on the data that I've seen published, whereas we get to higher levels of knockdown a little bit earlier. So I think it's really difficult to sort of prognosticate all the different scenarios. I think maybe they'll see an effect. Maybe it's not static. I don't know. I don't want to speculate at all. but these are different molecules, but there are overlapping areas. And I think as we get the data sets, there'll be some inferences made in terms of where we can connect the dots and where there are maybe unique aspects of the molecules or study designs, for instance, that may have contributed. Our studies are event-driven for instance. And so we may -- that may give us, as we've talked about, additional insurance and help with powering of the studies overall. So Again, I think we'll wait to see how those studies pan out. But I think we feel very good based on the HELIOS-B results, our patient level insights that we have from those studies and the detailed data we have in terms of how to design TRITON-CM and to establish its success. And so we feel very good about that. And that is why -- part of the reason we had talked about the sample size increase as well today.
It's great. I think we are quarterly subparts regimen as well for AMVUTTRA provides additional differentiation. I think that's one of the reasons why we think such good adherence to [indiscernible] as well as, obviously, the compelling clinical profile that we provide.
Our next question comes from the line of Salveen Richter with Goldman Sachs.
With regard to AMVUTTRA, how are you thinking of the trajectory in 2026 post the headwinds that played out in 1Q? And in particular, could you just comment on the ex U.S. pricing dynamics in Germany and elsewhere and whether those have stabilized yet or are still ongoing?
Question is referring to the ex U.S. picture. I think talk clearly, you'll answer that, but I just want to say how pleased we are with the progress of our launches ex U.S. Tolga touched on this in his prepared remarks. And I think it's a testament, actually, to our pricing and reimbursement organization that we've been able to to move forward with a number of AMVUTTRA-CM launches in Europe and in Japan. Tolga you want to comment on pricing.
Sure. Thanks, Salveen, for that question. So let's unpack that a little bit in terms of our ex U.S. pricing dynamics. And we touched upon this in our earnings call, the prior earnings call. And obviously, it's worked out better than what we had anticipated. That was primarily driven by our Japan launch progress. That's going really well as well as obviously the robustness business in RPN. But if you look at the rest of the year, I think the way we should be thinking about it is when we launched the CM indication in markets outside the U.S., it does typically involve a price adjustment for our which can have an impact on the existing RPN business space. The magnitude of that impact obviously varies by market, primarily driven by the size of the price adjustment and the relative scale of that business, existing business. In that context, that Germany did represent the most significant impact in Q1 across all our international markets. And importantly, this was obviously a deliberate and expected step in expanding into a larger opportunity. Over time, the CM volume more than offsets the impact of the initial price adjustments on the PN base. And a helpful way to think about this is a mix shift. We're effectively trading a smaller, higher-priced segment for access to a significantly larger patient population. And then the mix evolves, the overall value of the market will expand. And what does this mean for the rest of the quarter is we expect this to become a net positive growth for starting in Q2, building throughout the year and contributing incremental on a full year basis. I think what we had said is essentially, the contribution of growth is going to be about the same, net-net as ex U.S. did contribute last year.
Our next question comes from the line of Cory Kasimov with Evercore ISI.
Apologies for asking another one related to cardio transform but assuming that doesn't factored out positively, how do you think about the evolution of pricing as another silencer enters the picture, especially given the Part B versus Part D dynamic? Is there any reason to think that pricing could materially change? Or is the PN experience applicable and CM in this case as well?
Look, it's never a good idea to speculate your competitors' pricing. But what we've seen so far is -- we've done really well in '26 in terms of how we've been able to actually increase our first-line access with payers. We anticipate that to continue. Payers are taking this disease very seriously and price sensitivity right now is not really in the works as we've seen and been able to demonstrate that. Currently, Yvonne slightly more premium than our product annual on an annual basis. What we've seen so far, and they had priced it after us. I think they're also seeing how the pricing is working. We don't really anticipate any significant shift in the moment. And of course, we have been managing this very, very thoughtfully and monitoring it very carefully.
Our next question comes from the line of Ellie Merle with Barclays.
In your prepared remarks, you commented on how second line use is reduced to a normalized level. But can you comment on the trends you're seeing in the first line. Are you seeing a steady number of naive starts or an acceleration in the number of naive starts. If you could just help characterize what you're seeing there, that would be helpful.
You touched on that Tolga, but maybe to add a little bit more color.
Yes. I mean I think what's really exciting is what we've been seeing consistently is that once physicians initiate patients on [indiscernible], utilization deepens shift towards earlier using over time, and that really strengthens our first line. So early adoption is largely driven by treating patients progressing on stabilizers in the second-line setting and the opportunity is to work through prescribing natural evolves toward a greater proportion of first-line use. Therefore, we feel very good about so far how we've been able to managing this. And essentially, our aspiration is to continue to grow that first-time use by expanding our prescriber base.
Our next question comes from the line of Jessica Fye with JPMorgan.
I was wondering if you could touch on how -- if at all, the recently announced Pfizer settlement for [indiscernible] impact, how you think about the TTR [indiscernible] looking out over the next several years.
Yes. Great question [indiscernible] timely. Look, I think we've been rather consistent in how we've been characterizing that our growth outlook is really not dependent on the timing of a generic entry in the stabilizer class. We do expect the impact on our TTR outlook from the settlement to be rather limited. Just to remind everyone, this remains a significant underserved category with a large proportion of patients untreated. And we know that nearly half of those patients that are on a stabilizer continue to progress and they do in need of an [indiscernible] mechanism of action. Importantly, demand for Anbutra reflects a fundamental shift towards treating this disease added source which we see as durable and independent of pricing dynamics within the stabilizer class. We also believe that the TRIDENT CM study positions us really well to generate a robust data package for [indiscernible] supporting continued leadership in an evolving treatment landscape. Today, we're really well established with broad first-line access, strong patient affordability growing physician preference and well ahead of any potential LOE considerations. So taking it all together, I think we feel very well positioned to sustain growth through both continued on but adoption and frankly, the advancement of our next-generation pipeline.
Our next question comes from the line of Luca Issi with RBC Capital Markets.
.
. This is Shelby on for Luca. Yesterday, AstraZeneca printed a pretty meaningful miss for TTR and we know is actually down 35% Q-over-Q. So I guess from a competitor standpoint, is Alnylam a net beneficiary of that miss in PN. And then maybe bigger picture, could you walk us through your latest thinking on the competitive landscape here in the U.S., especially given the Medicare Part B, Part D dynamic and with the [indiscernible] syringe coming for [indiscernible]
Yes. I mean, look, I think it is customary to see some softening in the first quarter of the dynamic. When I look at our numbers throughout our -- we had certainly seen that, but that tends to actually recover in March, and we've always been able to post a good growth based on our base based business. So I think you guys should raise that question with them. What we know is even before the CM indication, we have been able to establish a very strong new patient market growth -- market share upwards of 75%, while the category continues to grow. So we are very pleased with that experience, and we certainly have every plan to replicate that success in the landscape as well. When it comes to Part D and Part B, look, I think we're really well positioned in terms of how we've been able to provide that access. The fact that our product is a quarterly subcutaneous injectable meets very nicely with the cadence of how those patients actually visit those offices. And it's -- and by the way, again, we've been able to expand our actually access nearly 90% when it comes to overall access and over 90% in terms of first-line access without any step edits with 0 patient out-of-pocket costs. those dynamics not only been secured but also improved versus last year. And that's, again, a testament to the product profile as well as actually a testament to the payers who really understand this disease and they leave up to the physician and their choice in how they want to manage this category.
Our next question comes from the line of Myles Minter with William Blair.
This is John on for Myles. Maybe just switch gears just a little bit. Just wondering where you're seeing [indiscernible] competitive landscape along with some of the next-gen complement CD19, [indiscernible] or FcRn. And any thoughts as to why more [indiscernible] combo therapy didn't result in better efficacy there?
No, we're clearly pleased with the progress of [indiscernible] in patients with MG. The results were really quite supportive of use of this disease. [indiscernible] any additional perspectives you'd like to add?
No. Look, I think I guess I'd just echo what [indiscernible] said. I think we're really excited that Regeneron has advanced [indiscernible]. I think the data in myasthenia are incredibly compelling that they've generated. We think this is going to be [indiscernible] and expect this will be a formidable drug for these patients where there's a lot of unmet need I think the detailed questions in terms of the market and the opportunity, I think we should leave for our colleagues over there, but we will end and its opportunity to help patients.
Our next question comes from the line of Paul Metteis with Morgan Stanley.
And maybe just a follow-up on the generic [indiscernible] question. Would you anticipate increased combo use in the frontline setting? Or would that be more of a second-line setting effect? And then do you think you need the data from nucrisaran combo to kind of accelerate that. Or do you not need that?
Yes, Mike. Look, I think as I explained, we've been able to establish ourselves as a first-line treatment over 35% in a short 9 months since the launch of the third entrant. That really is the fundamental question in a way how the market is going to be unfolding. In respect to combination use, as we had shared before, there are physicians who prefer to have a second line use in a switch or combo. And if that were to happen so far, we haven't seen any significant headwinds. We don't really speculate on that, how payers are going to be managing that. I think one step goes generic, certainly, that dynamic will evolve. And I think obviously, [indiscernible] will we'll be in a great position given the data we're generating. We already also do have combo data in our label as well as, obviously, physicians have been experiencing it already over a year. So what we, again, appreciate the fact that it's how we got out of the gate in terms of our launch dynamics, and we continue to maintain that posture.
Yes, absolutely. I think the key point here is that, as you said, our fortunes aren't tied to the generalization of the stabilizer class and we're quite excited about the TRITON-CM designed for [indiscernible] deliver a very robust data package to support the evolving treatment landscape. I think we've come to kind of our last question. So I will just wrap up by thanking everybody for joining us today. think we're off to a good start in 2026. And as we maintain momentum with the ongoing launch of [indiscernible] Ampoxin ATTR cardiomoprathy. We also continue to deliver significant advancements across our really quite exciting and deep pipeline of innovative therapy 6. Thanks, everybody. All the very best.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect. Have a good rest of your day. Goodbye.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
Alnylam reports a strong Q1 with >$1B revenue and solid pipeline momentum, reaffirming guidance.
📊 Quarter at a Glance
- Revenue: $1.03B total net product revenues (+121% YoY; +4% QoQ)
- TTR net revenues: $910M (+6% QoQ; +153% YoY)
- Rare disease net revenue: $126M (+15% YoY)
- Collaboration revenue: $82M (−17% YoY)
- Gross margin on product sales: 80% (−5 pp YoY)
- Cash and equivalents: ~$3.0B at quarter end
🎯 What Management Says
- Leadership in TTR remains central; AMVUTTRA and ONPATTRO generate substantial revenues, with new collaborations expected to boost awareness and care pathways.
- R&D momentum includes a deep pipeline (25+ programs) and data updates from ACC; next‑gen approaches and expanded RNAi delivery are priorities.
- 5‑year plan Alnylam 2030 emphasizes growth through sustainable innovation, a larger prescriber base, and high‑impact, transformative medicines beyond TTR.
🔭 Outlook & Guidance
- Guidance reiterated: 2026 TTR product sales guidance of $4.4B–$4.7B.
- Growth cadence expected to accelerate QoQ in TTR through 2026; international launches support ongoing expansion.
- Risks include pricing dynamics in ex-US markets, payer reauthorizations, competition, and potential LOE timing in the broader portfolio.
❓ Analyst Q&A
- Launch dynamics show a shift toward first‑line AMVUTTRA use as physician experience grows; prescriber base expansion is a key lever for durable uptake.
- Q1 headwinds include selling weeks and insurance reauthorizations; demand remained the primary driver of growth with some inventory effects offset by pricing.
- Pricing/competition discuss ex‑US pricing, Germany impact, and Part B vs Part D dynamics; management expects CM expansion to offset PN headwinds and sustain long‑term leadership.
⚡ Bottom Line
Alnylam demonstrates solid Q1 execution with over $1B in product revenue, confirms TTR leadership and a robust pipeline, and keeps 2026 targets intact. While international pricing shifts and competitive dynamics pose near‑term pressures, the company’s expansive pipeline, ongoing international adoption, and 2030 strategy position it for durable, long‑term growth.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Special Call - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
1. Management Discussion
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm Tolga Tanguler, Chief Commercial Officer at Alnylam, and I'm thrilled to be hosting today's webinar to update you on our leadership journey in delivering transformative therapies for patients living with ATTR amyloidosis.
This past Friday marked one year since AMVUTTRA was approved in the U.S. for patients with ATTR cardiomyopathy, a pivotal milestone for Alnylam that has launched us into a new era of growth. We've built a strong foundation through years of disciplined execution and are rapidly advancing toward leadership in TTR. So how do we get here? In 2018, with ONPATTRO, we introduced an entirely new class of medicine, RNAi therapeutics that silence disease at its source, bringing a transformative option to patients with hereditary ATTR amyloidosis with polyneuropathy.
We have continued to build on that foundation with AMVUTTRA, which launched in '22 for the same indication. And exactly 1 year ago, we expanded into ATTR cardiomyopathy population, which while still an orphan indication, is far more prevalent than hATTR-PN. We're now driving strong adoption across that larger patient base, and we're just getting started. We continue to accelerate AMVUTTRA uptake across the world. We're advancing our next-generation TTR therapy, nucresiran, with the potential to further raise the bar.
And as announced today, we're investing in cutting-edge capabilities to enable earlier diagnosis, better coordinated care and sustained long-term outcomes for patients. The strategy is clear: lead with science, reach patients still untreated or progressing on stabilizers and deliver durable impact for patients and value for shareholders.
Following last year's approval of AMVUTTRA for ATTR cardiomyopathy, supported by the compelling results from the landmark HELIOS-B trial, we moved quickly to drive adoption and ensure seamless patient access. Execution has been strong, enabled by our deep experience in TTR and the strength of our commercial and medical teams. That execution is translating into results. Now we more than doubled revenues for our TTR franchise in '25 versus '24. We beat and raised our guidance twice over the course of the year, and we're guiding to a further 83% growth in '26 at the midpoint.
This momentum reflects both the value AMVUTTRA is delivering to patients and physicians and the strength of our commercial capabilities. Today, we'll focus on how we build on this momentum to shape the future of ATTR treatment by expanding diagnosis, advancing innovation and continuing to raise the standard of care in an increasingly dynamic and competitive landscape. And before we begin, I want to acknowledge the ATTR patient community. It is a privilege to work alongside physicians, patients and their families as they navigate this complex disease and to bring forward therapies with the potential to meaningfully change the course of their lives.
I'm joined today by our key commercial and medical affair leaders who are at the center of this progress, including Mark Soued, Senior Vice President, Head of U.S. and TTR Lead; John Kennedy, Senior Vice President, TTR Franchise Commercialization Lead; Dr. Sameer Bansilal, VP TTR Disease Area Lead; and Christine Akinc, our Chief Corporate Communications Officer, who will join us to moderate the Q&A.
Let me briefly walk you through how we will shape the future of ATTR treatment and how it connects to our path to leadership. I'll start with our cardiomyopathy launch, what we've learned, how that momentum is building and how we're applying those insights to scale and strengthen our leadership position. Mark will then step back and frame the broader opportunity in ATTR amyloidosis, including the significant number of patients who remain undiagnosed and untreated. Dr. Sameer Bansilal, will build on that with recent data reinforcing AMVUTTRA's differentiated clinical profile and how that translates into compelling value proposition for patients and physicians.
John and Mark will then focus on 2 defining potential future dynamics for the market, increasing competition within the TTR silencer class, where we've already demonstrated our ability to compete successfully in the hATTR-PN setting and the transition of stabilizer class with tafamidis loss of exclusivity. They will outline how we are positioned to continue to compete and grow through both.
And finally, John will bring it together with how we're planning to drive category growth, expanding diagnosis, increasing access and reaching more patients at scale. For the Q&A, please submit your questions through the webcast dialogue box. As a reminder, we will be making forward-looking statements. Looking at pace of AMVUTTRA's launch in cardiomyopathy, we're seeing strong early momentum. In 2025, performance was driven by our U.S. launch and the initial rollout in Japan, both demonstrating uptake that exceeds relevant specialty analogs. That momentum is translating into real scale.
More than 12,000 patients now treated globally across our TTR franchise, a large and expanding prescriber base, including more than 1,600 unique U.S. prescribers since launch last March, and this is clearly reflected in our financial performance. Since launch in cardiomyopathy, we have delivered $2.1 billion in total global TTR revenues, and we're guiding to $4.4 billion to $4.7 billion in 2026, underscoring our confidence in continued growth.
As we look ahead, it's important to start with what enables that future, the foundation we built in 2025. Our early success in cardiomyopathy reflects deliberate execution against the core fundamentals required to build a durable franchise. First, physician preference and utilization. AMVUTTRA's clinical profile has driven a strong and compelling first-line positioning with strong preference among physicians who have experience using it.
Second, access and affordability. Innovation only matters if patients can access it. Leveraging our experience in this space, we've secured durable first-line access for approximately 90% of patients with the majority paying 0 out of pocket. And our access is broader than it was in 2025, allowing us to reach more patients.
Third, site of care infrastructure. We've built a robust provider network to enable efficient administration. Today, around 90% of U.S. patients can receive treatment within 10 miles of their homes. These are not short-term metrics. They are the foundation for sustained growth. They position us to scale within a therapeutic category that continues to expand meaningfully.
If you look more closely, we can see the momentum unlocked through disciplined execution against these fundamentals. As a third entrant in ATTR-CM, competing against a legacy standard of care, we achieved an average approximately 35% new-to-brand market share across the first 3 quarters of launch. That's a clear signal of unmet need and willingness from both physicians and patients to adapt a new treatment approach.
Importantly, we're seeing consistent patterns emerge that will guide how we scale from here. First, experience drives preference. Physicians who gain experience with AMVUTTRA increasingly choose it as their first-line therapy for new patients.
Second, utilization drives depth. As physicians build confidence, they expand use, treating more patients and choosing AMVUTTRA consistently in their practice. Third, patient choice is reinforcing adoption. Patients are well informed and asking their physicians for AMVUTTRA, now the most requested brand among surveyed U.S. TTR patients who express a treatment preference.
With these dynamics, our foundational pillars in place, our focus now shifts to the next unlock, expanding the breadth of our prescriber base. That is a key driver of growth and a metric we will hold ourselves accountable to as we scale to the next phase of launch. To double-click on the first learning that experience drives preference, we're seeing clearly that experience with AMVUTTRA reinforces physician confidence and drives further adoption.
As with any new therapy, entering a competitive and established market, physicians begin with a set of practical considerations, particularly around access, affordability and efficacy. And from that perspective, real-world experience with AMVUTTRA has been highly favorable. It has broad access. Most patients pay 0 out of pocket, and it has a highly differentiated clinical profile that resonates with physicians, especially when they start using it. And as we now focus on expanding the breadth of prescribing, bringing more physicians into that experience, we're confident this will continue to drive deeper utilization and sustained growth over time.
Importantly, -- all of this is unfolding within a large and rapidly expanding U.S. treatment category. We now estimate nearly 200,000 ATTR-CM patients in the U.S. alone with more than 80% still untreated. What we're seeing is a category where the treatment volume is continuing to accelerate. As expected, increased focus and competition are driving diagnosis and treatment. The U.S. treatment category grew 56% annually in '23 and '24 with only a single approved therapy.
With the addition of a second stabilizer and the introduction of AMVUTTRA, the first and only silencer in ATTR-CM, U.S. category growth accelerated to 77% in '25. We expect this strong trajectory to continue in the U.S. as diagnosis expands and more patients are treated. We are well positioned at the center of that growth, combining a differentiated approach, strong execution and increasing physician adoption.
With that, I will turn it over to Mark, who leads our U.S. business, to outline the opportunity ahead and how we intend to capture it.
Thanks, Tolga, and I'm thrilled to be here today to discuss the opportunity ahead. Let me start by framing the ATTR-CM opportunity. Today, we're updating our latest understanding of global epidemiology. ATTR-CM remains a significantly underserved disease category. We estimate there are roughly 200,000 patients in the U.S. living with ATTR-CM. And importantly, more than 80% of those patients remain untreated.
Globally, we estimate approximately 500,000 patients are living with ATTR-CM. At the same time, awareness of the disease continues to increase meaningfully. Since 2019, we've seen prescription volume in the category grow, reflecting improvements in diagnosis, greater physician awareness and ultimately, more patients being treated. Taken together, these dynamics highlight both the substantial unmet need that still exists and the momentum already underway in expanding treatment across the ATTR-CM landscape.
To better understand how the category can continue to grow, it's helpful to look at the opportunity across 3 key patient segments. First, of the nearly 200,000 patients living with ATTR-CM in the U.S. today, approximately 80% or 160,000 remain untreated. This is up from the 125,000 patients that we estimated at our TTR Day in October 2024.
Second, we estimate that approximately 15,000 patients per year are new to treatment. That means you have an inflow of about 15,000 new starts every year, and that's a constantly refreshed number. And this is up from the 10,000 or so that we estimated in October 2024. And third, there is a meaningful opportunity among patients currently receiving stabilizer therapies who unfortunately continue to progress. There are some observational data suggesting that as many as half of patients on a common stabilizer, suggesting roughly 15,000 patients today fall into this category, representing an important population where physicians are increasingly evaluating additional or alternative MOA treatment options.
And this is up from the between 8,000 and 13,000 that we estimated in October 2024. Together, these segments illustrate the multiple avenues for continued category expansion, driven both by new diagnosis and optimization of treatment for patients already on stabilizers. And these categories will continue to grow in number over time.
Finally, it's important to consider how diagnosis itself is evolving. So prior to the availability of effective therapies, ATTR-CM diagnosis and treatment rates were extremely low. Around 2% of patients were identified before the first treatment options became available. As awareness and treatment options expanded, diagnosis and treatment rates have improved meaningfully. And looking forward, we believe diagnosis and treatment rates will continue to increase substantially based on benchmarks from other diseases such as MS or PAH or AFib, diagnosis rates reach around 70% over time as awareness, screening practices, clinical guidelines and the treatment landscape all evolve.
So with additional therapies entering the market and a growing focus from the cardiology community, we believe the ATTR-CM treatment category is still in the early stages of formation, creating a significant opportunity for continued growth over the coming decade. We'll talk later about how we are stepping firmly into that leadership role and ensuring diagnosis and treatment rates do indeed improve for the patients who depend on it.
So stepping back, we believe the ATTR-CM category remains in the early stages of its development with significant opportunity ahead. Today, nearly 200,000 patients in the U.S. are living with ATTR-CM. The majority remain untreated even as diagnosis improves and awareness expands. And when we look across the opportunity from the large untreated population to newly diagnosed patients entering treatment each year to patients progressing on stabilizers, we see multiple pathways to help patients in need and sustain AMVUTTRA's growth with durability.
And importantly, if diagnosis rates ultimately evolve towards levels we've seen in other cardiovascular diseases, the number of patients actively treated could actually increase substantially within the decade. So in short, we believe ATTR-CM represents one of the most significant remaining opportunities in cardiovascular medicine to improve diagnosis and expand treatment options for patients who are largely underserved today.
You'll hear more about what we're doing to grow the category later on in today's presentation. But with that context on the size of the opportunity and how the category is evolving, I'll now turn it over to Dr. Sameer Bansilal, who will walk through AMVUTTRA's clinical value proposition. Over to you.
Thank you, Mark. That clearly highlights the opportunity in ATTR-CM. The next question is, what defines clinical value and how does vutrisiran stand apart? From a clinical perspective, I'll focus on the data and the experience that matter most for cardiologists and patients. My name is Sameer Bansilal, I'm Vice President, Global Medical Affairs, TTR Disease Area Head at Alnylam.
I'm also a practicing cardiologist at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx. Over the course of my career, I've worked as a clinical trialist and outcomes researcher at Mount Sinai, NYU, Brigham Women's Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health. As clinicians, our goal is simple. We want our patients to live longer, better lives and remain on therapy long enough to realize those benefits.
Historically, it has been difficult to achieve all 3 simultaneously. With their RNA silencing platform at Alnylam and continued commitment to ATTR-CM patients, we believe we have the opportunity to deliver across each of these goals. We ask cardiologists who treat TTR patients, what attributes matter most when selecting a therapy for patients with ATTR-CM. What you see on the left side of the slide is the rating for the patient outcomes that are most important to them.
Their top priorities include reducing mortality, reducing cardiovascular-related hospitalization and having a positive impact on patients' quality of life. What you see on the right side is the cardiologist rating of vutrisiran on these attributes. And as you can see across the board, for the outcomes that are most important to them as they make choices for their patients, AMVUTTRA rates very highly for mortality, for hospitalizations and also quality of life. So let's take a closer look at all 3 of these in terms of the data that drives these high ratings.
To start, let me walk you through the clinical rationale and evidence supporting our expectation that this therapy can help patients live longer, the mortality data. In the HELIOS-B trial, during the double-blind period and the extended follow-up during the open-label extension, vutrisiran has shown a definitive and increasing benefit on all-cause mortality to nearly 40% in the monotherapy population. When identified early and treated as we did in HELIOS-B, vutrisiran has the potential to bring patients close to their estimated age-adjusted mortality, which is remarkable for a disease that the survival rate over 5 years was extremely low only a few years ago.
A patient's experience with the treatment is often undervalued in our system. But in reality, it's one of the top priorities for patients and cardiologists treating them. How patients feel day-to-day matters. It can influence things like being able to take a walk with a friend or play with grandchildren. It matters to patients, and it directly influences treatment decisions. That's where targeting TTR production at its source makes a meaningful difference for patients. Gastrointestinal symptoms are one of the most common and burdensome extracardiac manifestations of ATTR-CM, affecting the majority of patients, whether hereditary or wild-type, with prevalence rates reaching as high as 70% in some populations.
In HELIOS-B, we saw that patients treated with vutrisiran have self-reported 40% fewer of these symptoms and depending on the specific GI side effect, as much as 65% lower incidence. What is noteworthy because we inhibit the protein at source, the lower incidence of these extra cardiac manifestations were observed early and the difference grew over time. This is in contrast to the effects noted with stabilizers. How are we impacting mortality and morbidity? What is the relevance of this inhibition at source?
One specific proof point that is unique to vutrisiran, and this is important data from the National Amyloidosis Center in the U.K. is that we have been able to show in HELIOS-B with serial cardiac MRI imaging in the monotherapy population, we observed not only a reduction in the amyloid burden, we also see that translate into improvement in structure and function. In fact, when we compare regression of amyloid protein, as noted in the LV mass change here and paralleled by ECV and multiple other measures, we see amyloid regression in 22% patients in the vutrisiran group in contrast to over 2/3 of patients progressing in the placebo arm.
The improvement in LV stroke volume is quite striking and has not been previously seen in terms of an improvement in myocardial structure and function. And we do believe that this is due to the innovation at source. These are both observed in a small subset of patients, and we continue to study these measures in ongoing and future studies. Patients can only realize these benefits if they take their medicines correctly, well and for the long term. Another noteworthy feature of vutrisiran is its once every quarter health care professional administered dosing, which is associated with a persistence and adherence profile that is quite exceptional.
We have previously shown in real-world analysis of hereditary ATTR peripheral neuropathy patients that quarterly HCP administration represents a significant benefit, and we see a meaningful difference as it relates to vutrisiran persistence and adherence versus old stabilizer therapy. Similar data in the ATTR-CM population will be presented at upcoming congresses. Finally, we are continuing to expand the evidence base to further strengthen AMVUTTRA's differentiation and support sustained growth.
Building on the strong clinical foundation established by HELIOS-B, we are continuing to generate real-world evidence through the DemonsTTRate observational study now enrolling globally. We are capturing a range of patients, and we'll be able to not only look at further clarifying the benefit, effectiveness and safety of vutrisiran as a first-line therapeutic, but we shall also be able to look at comparative and combination treatments as patients accrue.
Let me wrap up with what I just shared with you in terms of what this all means for patients through outcomes that align with what clinicians prioritize most when selecting a therapy. With vutrisiran, we are able to help ATTR-CM patients live longer to the point of them living nearly as long as they would without this disease. With this TTR inhibition at source, vutrisiran mitigates extracardiac adverse effects while positively impacting cardiac structure and function.
And then finally, the reason we think this happens quite consistently across the board with vutrisiran is our once every 3-month dosing. And with that, we have been able to get to more than 90% persistence and adherence over more than a two-year period. And that's all translating into the benefit, which we hope to capture in an observational study and many other studies that we are launching.
With that, I will hand over to John Kennedy.
All right. Thank you, Sameer. I'm John Kennedy, Senior Vice President, TTR Franchise Commercialization Lead. Let me shift to the competitive landscape within the silencer class and how we think about sustaining leadership going forward. We're competing against eplontersen in the hereditary ATTR polyneuropathy category today. And that experience has shown us 2 things. The first is that the category expanded. Our volume growth continued unabated and the total treatment category grew.
And the second, we maintained leadership. More than a year after competitor entry, we maintained about 70% share of new starts and more than 80% of the total market share. And we established this preference for AMVUTTRA before having the cardiomyopathy approval, meaning we were competing effectively before the benefit of label expansion. This reflects the strength of AMVUTTRA value proposition, including the favorable access dynamics that Tolga referenced, the adherence and persistence that Sameer mentioned and the customer preference built during our lead time.
And we believe these dynamics are all transferable to cardiomyopathy as well. Another consideration when thinking about the silencer landscape is how these therapies are used alongside stabilizer therapy. AstraZeneca has focused their commentary on the combination data they expect from CARDIO-TTRansform. But remember, HELIOS-B showed consistency of AMVUTTRA treatment effect with or without tafamidis background. We have the data. It's reflected in the label. And in fact, we're already seeing meaningful volume of use in combination and in the real world.
That means customers are gaining experience using combination mechanism of action, and we'll be able to continue generating even more data from real-world data sets. So if CARDIO-TTRansform demonstrates the benefit of dual mechanism of action approach, that would corroborate what we've already seen and bolster the case for even more combination treatment. Now it's not surprising there's been conversation about what CARDIO-TTRansform will show. And in fact, our market research has shown that the large majority of cardiologists believe favorable combination treatment data will support a broader class effect.
Again, it would corroborate what we've already seen from HELIOS-B. And ultimately, when clinicians reach for a silencer, they're looking for depth, duration and consistency of knockdown. Today, AMVUTTRA delivers on that with the fewest doses per year. And of course, our next-generation candidate, vutrisiran, is designed to extend that durability even further into the future with greater than 95% knockdown in just 2 doses per year.
Finally, we've also heard questions relating to pricing or access implications with a new silencer competitor that will be covered under pharmacy benefit. But remember, today, we're already competing against 2 ATTR-CM medicines, both covered under pharmacy benefit. And we know AMVUTTRA has excellent access, approximately 99% coverage overall and 90% coverage in first line and the majority of patients paying $0 in out-of-pocket cost for AMVUTTRA. So from an access perspective, we believe AMVUTTRA is already well positioned within the current coverage environment. Having another pharmacy benefit medicine in the mix does not change the calculus.
So pulling it all together, competition in the silencer class is a net positive for the category and for patients. ATTR cardiomyopathy remains significantly underdiagnosed and undertreated and increased attention in the disease ultimately expands awareness and accelerates category growth. We're already competing today in the silencer class in the hATTR polyneuropathy market. Competition has expanded that category. And despite that competition, we've retained clear leadership.
But ultimately, when physicians choose a silencer, they're looking for depth, duration and consistency of knockdown to drive meaningful outcomes for patients. We're well positioned to sustain differentiation with AMVUTTRA. Additionally, our next-generation candidate, nucresiran, is positioned to extend that leadership even further.
With that, I'll turn it over to Mark to speak about the second competitive event in ATTR-CM, the genericization of the stabilizer class. Mark?
Thanks, John. Okay. Let me now turn to the anticipated genericization of the stabilizer class, specifically tafamidis. Importantly, our trajectory is not dependent on the timing of tafamidis' loss of exclusivity. AMVUTTRA's differentiated profile is already driving demand and shaping physician preference today, and we expect that momentum to sustain and build both before and after the stabilizer class transitions.
And as we think about how the market may evolve, we see several dynamics that we believe will support sustained growth for AMVUTTRA. First, we are already seeing meaningful traction against the incumbent in new patient starts despite entering the market several years later. Within just a few quarters of our U.S. launch, AMVUTTRA has delivered steady share gains in new starts, reflecting growing physician and patient interest in differentiated upstream silencing. Importantly, that early adoption is translating into preference.
Among physicians with experience using AMVUTTRA, we're seeing a clear shift towards selecting it for new patients, and this dynamic is critical. As preference builds, then it's driving demand and establishing that foundation ahead of tafamidis' LOE positions us well for sustained growth over the long term.
The second important consideration is access. If you look at the U.S. payer mix in ATTR-CM, we should not assume that genericization will lead to universal step edits for AMVUTTRA. In fact, it will not. For patients already on treatment at the time of tafamidis' LOE, we expect continuity of care to remain the priority, meaning many patients will continue therapy without payer disruption. It's also important to remember that in Medicare fee-for-service, which is our single largest payer segment and represents approximately half of our business today, AMVUTTRA is covered to label with no step edits, and we would expect that dynamic to continue following tafamidis' LOE. Again, this segment represents nearly half of our business today.
Of course, it's possible we'll see step edits, particularly in the commercial segment of the market. But even when there is a step edit today, we've seen that when a doctor and a patient determine that AMVUTTRA is the right treatment, patients can usually access it, whether through appeals or a relatively rapid progression through a step. And let's not forget that many ATTR-CM patients may progress on tafamidis and therefore, require a switch or add-on treatment. And because of AMVUTTRA's orthogonal mechanism of action, we are well positioned to address that need.
This leads to another important opportunity following tafamidis' LOE, which is the potential to more fully unlock dual mechanism treatment strategies. Cardiologists are already accustomed to adding on and combining therapies in cardiovascular disease. This is how they practice. As John spoke about earlier, as the body of clinical data supporting silencing therapy continues to grow, including evidence emerging from studies like CARDIA transform, we expect increasing confidence in combination approaches using both stabilization and silencing.
At the same time, the availability of generic stabilizers could significantly reduce the cost of dual MOA treatment, making these strategies more accessible in clinical practice. And so taken together, this creates an environment where AMVUTTRA will play an increasingly important role. So when we step back, we believe AMVUTTRA is extremely well positioned in a post-LOE environment. We're already building first-line demand and physician preference today years ahead of anticipated genericization.
We expect durable access across key payer segments with continued need for therapies that offer an orthogonal mechanism of action. And the tafamidis LOE may actually accelerate adoption of dual-MOA treatment strategies, supported by a growing body of clinical data. And so taken together, these dynamics reinforce what we believe is a sustained opportunity for AMVUTTRA growth.
And so let me turn it back over to John to discuss how we'll accelerate our investments to drive category growth.
Thanks, Mark. So let me close by focusing on the opportunity ahead to further accelerate growth in ATTR-CM. We've already talked about the strong momentum in the category, but we see a clear opportunity to build on that and do it in a deliberate, focused way. As we continue to scale, our role as a category leader is not just to participate in the growth, but to help shape it, expanding diagnosis, increasing treatment rates and ultimately helping more patients.
We think about the diagnostic journey, there are really 3 stages: awareness, suspicion and diagnosis. Diagnostic tools already exist. Nuclear scintigraphy provides noninvasive, accurate and accessible confirmatory diagnostic test. So that's not really the primary barrier. The real opportunity is earlier recognition of disease, which requires much greater awareness and clinical suspicion upstream. So more patients are identified and diagnosed sooner. By increasing recognition of the disease and improving identification of these patients, we can help ensure more patients reach confirmatory testing and ultimately receive appropriate treatment. And that's where we're investing.
The first pillar of our strategy is expanding patient awareness and engagement, including our direct-to-consumer efforts. We're already driving meaningful interest from patients today. Now if you're not one of our target audience, you may not have seen our ad, but I can tell you, our target audience is seeing it and is working. Already today, we're the most requested ATTR-CM therapy by patients.
Second, we continue to expand the HCP prescriber base across cardiology and heart failure specialists. We've talked about the breadth of prescribing. We'll continue to increase that just as we have so far in our launch. We're built to cover the potential of the market with our field force, and we're engaging more physicians. The third pillar of our strategy is advancing AI-enabled diagnostic technology, importantly, with an emphasis on practical implementation.
We're partnering with nationally recognized organizations to identify patients earlier in the course of disease. So earlier today, we announced a set of strategic collaborations designed to accelerate earlier recognition and improve care coordination for ATTR-CM patients. One of these is our collaboration with Viz.ai, a leader in AI-powered disease detection and care coordination.
Together through the AWARE study, we're developing ATTR-CM care pathways at 5 large U.S. integrated health systems, integrating FDA-cleared Echo AI algorithm with electronic health records designed to help clinicians identify patients earlier in the disease and guide appropriate diagnostic evaluation and referral. The pathway will coordinate care across cardiology and heart failure teams. This AWARE study is the first multisystem prospective implementation study designed to evaluate how AI-enabled screening can be incorporated into real-world clinical workflows and improve diagnostic time lines and care coordination.
The initiative will help generate real-world evidence to inform broader scalable adoption across health systems in the Viz.ai network. The goal is simple: identify patients earlier and connect them to care before potentially irreversible disease progression occurs. The fourth pillar of our strategy is to enable end-to-end health system engagement, working directly with the large integrated health systems to improve care pathways.
So also announced today, we're working with the American Heart Association to strengthen systems of care for ATTR cardiomyopathy. This 3-year initiative will convene a national learning collaborative of multidisciplinary health systems to evaluate current care pathways and identify ideal models of care for diagnosis and managing ATTR cardiomyopathy. Participating centers will assess processes across diagnosis, referral, treatment and follow-up to improve coordinated care and patient outcomes.
We'll disseminate insights generated through this program nationally to enable broader adoption of effective care models. Now remember, we're already engaging approximately 190 accounts that drive about 80% of ATTR cardiomyopathy patient volume. With our new collaborations, we believe we can strengthen ATTR-CM care delivery across the health care system nationally.
Finally, we continue to expand global access for AMVUTTRA to ensure that patients around the world have access to this important therapy. We've launched in Japan and Germany and more recently in Austria and the U.K. We continue to advance additional regulatory submissions and pricing and reimbursement negotiations to expand access in markets around the world. So stepping back, the opportunity in ATTR cardiomyopathy remains significant. We're establishing leadership with AMVUTTRA a differentiated therapy, and we're building strong physician and patient preference.
We're investing to accelerate diagnosis all while expanding access globally. So taken together, we believe these efforts position us to continue driving meaningful growth while improving outcomes for patients living with ATTR cardiomyopathy.
So with that, I'll turn it back to Tolga.
Thank you, John. As you've seen today, Alnylam is well positioned to continue driving long-term growth with our TTR franchise. This is enabled by a treatment category that is underpenetrated and rapidly growing. All told, by 2030, we could see upward of 75,000 patients being treated for ATTR-CM in the U.S. alone. It will be a competitive market, but one in which AMVUTTRA is poised to stand out and be the revenue leader in TTR by 2030. We're confident in our ability to achieve that goal, driven by continued focus on these 3 key foundations we discussed earlier, driving differentiation preference, knowing that experience drives utilization, ensuring seamless patient access and affordability and setting up a broad care network.
With these elements in place and helping to deliver remarkably strong results out of the gate, we look forward to unlocking the next phase of launch. As we look ahead, we're focused on scaling what we built, driving sustained category growth, expanding our prescriber base and maximizing the strong adherence and persistence we're already seeing. These are the key drivers that will shape our next phase of growth. What you heard today is a plan for leadership in a category with tremendous amount of opportunity.
We're advancing the field with continued investment in TTR, including our next-generation therapy, nucresiran, which has the potential to raise the bar. We're also investing in new technologies to identify patients earlier. All of this with the goal of continuing to bring real transformative therapies to patients at scale. As you can tell, we're incredibly excited about the opportunity ahead.
So with that, let's head to our Q&A session.
Good morning, and thank you, Tolga, Mark, Sameer and John. So we'll now begin the Q&A portion of our webcast today. So just as a reminder, please enter your question in the dialogue box in the chat and we will get to as many as we can in our 20-minute session. Just as a quick reminder, the focus of today's session will be the presentation that was delivered earlier today, and we will hold any questions related to quarterly progress for our Q1 call. So with that, let's go to our first question. We have a number that have been queued up at this point. So you said a lot about expanding the prescriber base. Can you tell us who has prescribed so far? And are all the former PN writers?
Great question. Indeed, we are focusing on that. Before I turn it over to Mark, let me point out the fact that what's really great about this first year of learning is the fact that once doctors experience AMVUTTRA, they really enjoy it. They use it. So there are no real hurdles in terms of prescribing the drug and they start seeing the results. And therefore, what's really left is to continue to differentiate the asset as well as to continue to expand the prescriber bases. So Mark?
Yes. No, I think you said it well. I mean if we look at our prescriber base today, it's quite broad and balanced. And actually, 75% of our prescribers today for AMVUTTRA are new prescribers. And so as Tolga said, once they get experience with AMVUTTRA, we found that there's actually a preference adult for AMVUTTRA. And so that's why it's really important that we continue to expand that prescriber base, and we use that to essentially unlock the next wave of growth.
Great. So let's go to our next question. What do you expect your share of the 75,000 treated patients in TTR in the U.S. to be in 2030? And can you translate that into a peak revenue number for us?
Yes. So what we've done, Christine, is obviously, we guided the market for '26 revenues, which is at midpoint, over 80%, anywhere between $4.4 billion to $4.7 billion. That obviously is built on the great momentum that we've been able to build in 2025. Now in terms of the 75,000 number, one other key aspect of this is obviously our 2030 ambition. We certainly look forward to being the leader in terms of revenue by 2030 and 75,000 number has been incorporated into that. Maybe JPK, you can actually expand on that.
Yes, absolutely. I think you talked about some of the core elements. So we did provide TTR guidance for 2026. That's robust growth. And for the 2030 aspirational goals for the company, obviously, we did provide some commentary about TTR. So one component of that was to achieve leadership share of revenues for the category by 2030 and across the period. And then the second component that we talked about was our total revenue for the company would grow at about 25% CAGR over the period of time between now and 2030.
Now that's total revenue for the company, so more than TTR alone. But again, consider TTR is a significant driver of it. So that gives you a sense of the potential that we see. And again, it's all grounded in how many patients there are in the U.S., unfortunately, still untreated today. There's significant opportunity. We're seeing momentum. That's great, but there's still a lot of opportunity ahead.
Super. And we actually have a 3-part question for our next one. So are you seeing any changes in step-through requirements as a part of restrictions to first-line AMVUTTRA? And how are payer discussions going for 2027 policies? What gives you confidence in your ability to maintain this level of first-line access beyond 2027?
Yes. So as Head of U.S., Mark, you'll probably need to take this one. What I'll say is, look, there has been -- this has been a hot topic. Since we actually had our first event on investors with the TTR back in '24 in October, there was a lot of debate about are we going to be covered? What the burden on the co-pay for the patients is going to be? Are we going to be step edited? So in '25, obviously, we've been able to demonstrate that we got great coverage, nearly all patients actually not having any co-pay. And '26, in fact, the numbers have been actually better in terms of our coverage. So maybe, Mark, you can give additional color on that.
Yes. So indeed, in October '24, and I think leading up to the launch, there were a lot of questions. And at that time, I think we shared our expectations for favorable access based on AMVUTTRA's clinical profile, but also based on the dynamics between Part B and Part D. And our expectations have become reality. Today, we have over 90% of patients with confirmed first-line access. The majority of patients pay $0 out of pocket. And that, by the way, is with 2 Part D competitors in the market.
And so as we look ahead and we sort of see and think about how this is going to unfold, all those fundamentals remain the same. That's regardless of whether another Part D competitor comes into the market. And I'll point out that today, we are competing with WAINUA in polyneuropathy, and we have virtually unrestricted access I mean, one other point here to think about as we think ahead is also the LOE of tafamidis. And if we think about what that means, we believe that's actually a tailwind. We'll see the price of tafamidis come down.
We think that will help unlock combo usage, which I think this is something that a cardiology community would want to do. And so bottom line is we think we're very well positioned from an access perspective. And we actually think that those dynamics that allow us to have that access today will persist into the foreseeable future.
No, you covered it very nicely. I think this is going to continue to be an ongoing effort on our side. But looking ahead, we're very confident about how we're going to be actually be able to manage that.
Thanks, Dr. Tolga. So while there is no universal definition of progression, what are some of the common guideposts or indicators that physicians are citing as meeting the bar for combo therapy or switching patients to AMVUTTRA?
Yes. So maybe, Sameer, you should take that as the only clinician in the panel of today. Go ahead, please.
Yes. Thank you, Tolga. That's an important discussion, really draws a lot of interest in the clinician and the academic community. While there are guidelines on both sides of the Atlantic, I think the more we speak to clinicians and researchers, the answer is always the same. This is as much art as it's science. At the end of the day, we have to talk to our patients, and we have to bring our clinical judgment in. And that's driven by multiple variables, which come from the guidelines in terms of imaging biomarkers and other clinical outcome measures.
I would say that I think far more important, even though there are data from health systems and observational data that point to nearly 50% progression with stabilizers, the broader need is really to identify these patients early because this is a very progressive disease and treat them with an effective agent. I would argue in this case, vutrisiran has shown very definitive data that we can really help bring down everything from mortality to hospitalizations and more.
That's nice capture. What's really excited about -- exciting about this first year is also being able to see that now doctors do have an option, an [indiscernible] mechanism. And therefore, I think we've been able to really help physicians to start identifying those patients early and as they progress, and therefore, they can actually end up being with AMVUTTRA.
So we've gotten a few questions about the collaborations that were announced earlier today. So can you tell us about these collaborations? And do these collaborations give you access to new or different patient segments that you're not currently penetrating today?
John, I'll have you take this one. But let me say a few words. First of all, we're really excited about these collaborations, and there will be more to come. And the point of this is we did lay out that we -- 2030 is our goal for leadership, and we're acting like leaders. And a leader does actually what others don't, which is set up the right ecosystem, making sure that we're actually connecting the dots to make sure that more patients are getting treated as the awareness and options are continuing to increase. So John?
Absolutely. So these are a couple of initiatives that have already announced today. And yes, we're very excited about. The most simple terms, this is about increasing diagnosis and ideally, the timeliness of that diagnosis and then facilitating care coordination. So bear in mind, we already know the numbers. Unfortunately, too many patients are overlooked, not diagnosed and/or not treated. And unfortunately, for many patients who are diagnosed, it happens later than it likely should.
And so this is really about facilitating timely and accurate diagnosis for more patients. Now you asked a question in there about specific segments. What I would say is if we look at the utilization of AMVUTTRA so far in the launch, it's been broad and relatively balanced, whether it's wild-type or variant patients across the spectrum of disease severity, academic center or community, we're seeing broad and balanced utilization. So it's not really about unlocking a specific segment per se, but more just increasing diagnosis, ideally timely diagnosis so more patients can find their way to appropriate treatment.
Can you expand on the meaning of the 35% of new-to-brand starts? Does this mean that AMVUTTRA is 35% of all new patient starts?
Yes. So look, we're incredibly excited about the number itself, given the fact that as a third entrant to this category, under less than 12 months, we've been able to actually essentially secure about 1/3 of the net new patients into -- for AMVUTTRA. That's quite remarkable. Those of you who may be familiar with how the market dynamics work. But I'll have Mark maybe expand on that, how that number is calculated. What does it really mean?
Yes. So that's new-to-brand Rx -- and to your point, Tolga, that captures the totality of the patients that are coming on to AMVUTTRA. I think having 1/3 of all those new starts within 9 months of launch actually is pretty impressive. So I think we're very happy to see that. It's very encouraging. I think it speaks to AMVUTTRA's clinical profile and also, frankly, to a once-a-quarter HCP administered therapy, which allows for validated adherence and ensure that the patients actually get the medicine to get the efficacy. And so now the goal is to really unlock this next wave of growth, as I mentioned before, and really expand that prescriber base.
Great. Thank you. We've gotten a couple of questions about the CARDIO-TTRansform study. So if AZ shows statistically significant results in the combo arm and lower the price, how will you compete? And conversely, if CARDIO-TTRansform does not hit stat sig in the subgroup of patients on background TAF, -- how do you expect greater restrictions from payers? And how would this potentially impact your commercial strategy?
So it's a 2-parter. I'll have Sameer, who is himself a trialist, expand on what we expect from CARDIO-TTRansform, and then I'll have John comment on the latter part of the question. What I'd like to say is, look, as we laid out in terms of our silencer strategy, there's nothing new essentially. In terms of our label, in terms of our data set and the experience that we're already building with patients and physicians both, we're already establishing AMVUTTRA.
And given it's actually unique profile, deeper knockdown and longer duration, we're already highly differentiated in this class. But let me turn it over to Sameer and maybe he can expand on what we expect and how we're going to continue to compete.
Absolutely, Tolga. Thank you. Again, let me, first of all, remind everyone, I think for HELIOS-B almost 2 years back, in our primary paper, we showed very clearly that vutrisiran provides benefit regardless of tafamidis as a background therapy. So that's our anchor data on combination therapy. That is the data that is available today. We have shared that broadly in multiple roundtables that many of us, in fact, led personally. And I would say in those conversations, the data resonates.
So people already know of this data that vutrisiran in combination with tafamidis does provide benefit from that perspective. I would say that I think when you start thinking about what happens with CARDIO-Transform, we have had those conversations as well. And I think the belief set is only going to be that it's a class effect. And that's our best guess at this point based on what we expect with CARDIO-Transform later this year.
Yes. So one of the question there was about what do we expect for pricing and access. And I had shared some of those thoughts earlier today. So just restate it. If you think about it, already today, we're competing against 2 pharmacy benefit covered products. And you see the AMVUTTRA access, it's really unencumbered. We have about 99% coverage, about 90% of that is in first line with the majority of patients paying $0 out-of-pocket cost. So we don't really see a dynamic that changes here. And I think the other thing I'll go back to is instructive to think about the experience that we've had in hereditary ATTR polyneuropathy.
So don't forget, we've been competing against the silencer already today. In polyneuropathy, way past a year of competition with another silencer, we saw 2 things happen. Number one, the category expanded. More patients were being treated. And the second is we retained leadership. So obviously, we do know that competition is generally helpful for the category. And at the end of the day, when a physician is reaching for a silencer, they're looking for that knockdown profile. AMVUTTRA today delivers about 87% mean reduction in TTR with 4 doses per year. Nucresiran, which is still a development candidate, promises to have the potential of delivering 95% knockdown with just 2 doses per year. So again, we're well positioned for the competition.
Great. What should we expect as far as quarter-over-quarter growth for the remainder of 2026?
Yes. So as you highlighted, it's a good question, but it's a question that we're not going to be able to answer, and we'll actually address this in the Q1. But what I can tell you is this, -- we've laid out our guidance at JPM. And what we laid out was due to a couple of facts. One is we could see how the product is performing competitively. We can see how the category is growing very -- in an accelerated fashion. And last but not least, we have concluded our '26 negotiations with the payers.
And all these 3 important dynamics were green. And that gave us even further confidence to actually provide it a guidance that's over 80% in midpoint to $4.4 billion to $4.7 billion for a year. And that's building on over 100% growth that we've been able to achieve in '25. And we're very confident that we're going to be able to continue that progress. And in Q1, we'll discuss more of the details on the Q1 and what you'll obviously see for the remainder of the year, how we intend to meet and hopefully exceed that guidance.
Great. We've actually gotten a number of questions about the TAF LOE. So I'm going to ask a couple of parts to this one question here. So when do you think TAF will goes generic? And what does that actually mean for AMVUTTRA? Is the availability of a generic alternative going to be a headwind for all players in the space as payers will step at a generic TAF first or it will be a tailwind as it would unlock combo use? And then how do you weigh the potential headwind of first-line access versus a tailwind on combo use?
That's a long question. Exactly. Well, look, I'll have Mark address this. And he, I think, did a phenomenal job in the way he laid out how we're going to compete against the potential genericization of the stabilizer class. What's great about where we are today, though, is it really doesn't matter because essentially, we have an orthogonal mechanism of action that have already established its competitiveness in less than a year. So whether TAF go generic by end of '28, that's what Pfizer has stated or one may speculate that it may happen later. It really doesn't matter in the way we are competing. But maybe in terms of the granular detail, Mark, you can provide more perspective.
Yes, yes, I will say. So Pfizer has publicly stated they expect the U.S. LOE for TAF to be in late 2028. And we think we're really well positioned, to your point, Tolga, to continue to manage AMVUTTRA in that era. There's strong demand, as I just shared a moment ago in terms of our NBRx. There's strong demand for AMVUTTRA, and that's because it's a therapy that knocks down TTR at the source and we're seeing that physicians and with patients that really resonates.
Additionally, I'll just reiterate, we have strong access today, right? As JPK pointed out, over 90% first-line coverage, 99% total coverage. Most patients pay 0 out of pocket. We expect those dynamics, those fundamentals to persist post TAF LOE. And so we really see the TAF LOE, frankly, as a tailwind because we think this unlocks the ability for physicians and for patients to use combo therapy if they want. I'll remind you, as Sameer pointed out, that we show from our HELIOS-B results similar effect with TAF or without TAF. And we'll see what the AZ WAINUA data look like, but that's almost certainly going to provide a tailwind for the category. And so at the end of the day, our fortunes are not tied to whether TAF is generic at the end of '28 or not. We do think this is an unlock for the class big picture. And so we look forward to it.
So how do we think about phasing of ex U.S. TTR revenues as you roll out across additional geographies?
Sure. First of all, look, we're quite excited because we're a company that is obviously despite its early stages of commercialization, has been a global organization, and we have footprint across the world. And we've been able to commercialize first ONPATTRO and then later AMVUTTRA with the PN indication quite successfully.
And as we move forward with making this product available across the world, we're going to actually have important steps. As you already know, we shared that Japan launch is going extremely well, even better than most analogs and other launches regardless of the therapy area. And we also did indicate that in Q1, we're going to see a little bit of a headwind given the fact that we're actually going to make a price adjustment to further compete in the cardiomyopathy, which has a much larger prevalence.
Now that softness in Q1 is good news. It's good news because essentially, we're building up volume that's going to be able to actually overcome some of those headwinds in the full year. John, you already shared with the slide that how those rest of the world launches are going, starting with, obviously, Japan, Germany. Can you give a little more context?
Yes, absolutely. So again, Japan well underway, great momentum, excited about that. Germany. We started with the provisional launch while we are working through the pricing reimbursement process, but now that's underway. And you're spot on in that Q1 will reflect the new negotiated cardiomyopathy price in Germany. And so for the PN volume in Q1, there's an adjustment, but we'll more than make up for that in growth. Bear in mind, the prevalence of cardiomyopathy is tenfold greater than polyneuropathy.
So we'll make up for that in volume growth after the initial transition. And then today, I shared that we've also launched in Austria and U.K., and we have several other countries staggered throughout the remainder of this year and into next year. So the goal is simple, bring AMVUTTRA to as many countries as we can as fast as we can. In terms of the revenue contribution, it will be more kind of back half of the year weighted just given these transitional dynamics, but tremendous opportunity we continue to move forward.
Thanks, John. So what are the AMVUTTRA persistence adherence you see in real world for ATTM-CM (sic) [ATTR-CM] so far? And how do you anticipate these evolving over time?
I'm so glad somebody picked up on the adherence point because as I closed the presentation, there are 3 key metrics, along with, obviously, our other metrics that we've been talking about. There are 3 key metrics that we're going to be updating -- the Street. One is obviously the category growth. The other one is adherence rate. And essentially, what we're going to make sure is that our highly differentiated product profile comes across very clearly. So with that, John, do you want to was it Mark? Yes, sorry, yes, take it. Sorry.
Yes. So just building on your point. So if we think about polyneuropathy, we've seen adherence rates in the 90% range, upwards of 90% -- and we're starting to -- obviously, it's early days here on cardiomyopathy, you need enough time to measure adherence, but we're seeing very similar numbers in terms of cardiomyopathy. So an important point here, though, is obviously, with cardiomyopathy, that tends to be an older patient population. And so sadly, there are more of those patients that expire over time.
It's still a small percentage, but obviously, that's on an increasingly large patient base. And so that's why coming back to the bigger question here, that's why we think AMVUTTRA really has a compelling and frankly, advantageous profile in terms of once quarterly HCP validated -- HCP administered and validated dosing where you're ensuring that the medicine gets into the patient.
And with nucresiran, as JPK pointed out, there's an opportunity there to have every 6-month dosing, which I think will be even more compelling. So anyway, this is something we're going to report on regularly as we've committed to. But so far, things look pretty similar in CM as they were in PN.
We have a number of questions that have come in, but we have time for one last question. So what are some of the channels you're using to reach patients to become the most requested treatment?
That's a great question. Who's going to take that one?
I mean what I'll say is patients and physicians, we know they're very involved in their treatment. And they're very active, especially in cardiomyopathy. And we use a number of means. We certainly do a lot of direct-to-consumer, and that may be with television, that may be with social, that's with search, that's with radio. And what we've seen is that it really works. And patients are asking for AMVUTTRA now very regularly.
In fact, what we've seen in our Q4 research is that AMVUTTRA is the most requested brand by physicians, which is -- which tells you something. And you may be wondering why don't I always see the ads on television. That's because we have a more targeted approach to actually placing the AMVUTTRA advertisements where the patients really are. And so we've seen it working. And we also have an in-house patient services organization that includes nurse educators that are able to engage directly with patients in an appropriate manner. And so I think all of those things help to ensure that patients are educated. Do you want to add anything to that, John?
I think maybe I'll just point to some of the initiatives that we have at scale. So we talked about some collaborations that have been announced. One of these, just to give another example, is this sponsorship of American Heart Association initiative, which really brings together a consortium of organization health provider accounts that are integrated systems. And it's really designed to identify what are these best practices for engaging customers so that we can actually work through the diagnosis and the care coordination process as efficiently as possible. So that's working at kind of a system scale, which complements some of the work that you're talking about in terms of direct patient engagement or physician engagement as well.
What's really exciting about -- thank you guys both. What's really exciting about this category is you've seen the growth has already been pretty robust when Pfizer alone actually introduced the first option available. And now it has significantly accelerated with the addition of AMVUTTRA. And part of the reason is not only actually communicating and creating awareness with the physicians, but also actually communicating directly with these patients.
Patients are really aware of this disease once they're diagnosed, and they are actively engaged in their treatment. That's where we see actually a clear preference for AMVUTTRA. But more importantly, before -- as John actually laid out, before the diagnosis, there is a longer period of suspicion and awareness. And this is the part where I think we've been playing a very important role. And clearly, again, we have a very targeted, very selective approach to reaching those patients. And once we do, I think our narrative really resonates with them, and this is one of the reasons why you see the results that you see today.
Great. That's all that we have time for today. Thank you to our speakers and to everyone who joined us on the webcast. The replay will be available on our website later today, and we look forward to keeping you updated on our progress on our next quarterly earnings call. Have a great day.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Special Call - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Special Call - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
🎯 Key Message
- Key Message: AMVUTTRA is accelerating leadership in ATTR-CM, driving rapid adoption and robust growth across Alnylam’s TTR franchise. The company aims to lead diagnosis, access and long-term outcomes while advancing nucresiran and AI-enabled screening, targeting 2030 revenue leadership in TTR.
💡 Strategic Highlights
- Momentum: AMVUTTRA adoption in ATTR-CM; 2025 TTR revenue more than doubled vs 2024; 2026 guidance midpoint up ~83%.
- Access & Prescribers: ~90% first-line coverage, most patients pay $0; >12,000 patients treated globally; ~1,600 U.S. prescribers since launch.
- Innovation & Partnerships: nucresiran pipeline; AI-enabled diagnosis with Viz.ai; AHA care-collaboration initiatives; global launches in Japan, Germany, Austria, UK.
🆕 New Information
- New Collaborations: Viz.ai AI-detection pathways (AWARE study) and American Heart Association collaboration to improve early diagnosis and care coordination for ATTR-CM.
- Evidence & Programs: HELIOS-B data supporting value; DemonsTTRate real-world observational study; planning for longer-interval dosing with nucresiran.
❓ Analyst Q&A
- Prescriber mix & new-to-brand: 75% of AMVUTTRA prescribers are new; ~35% of new-to-brand starts within 9 months signal rapid onboarding and growth potential.
- TAF LOE & dual MOA: Tailwinds from tafamidis genericization; data suggest combo therapy remains viable; potential for broader class effect with CARDIO-TTRansform data.
- Guidance & growth cadence: Will not provide quarter-by-quarter 2026 growth; reaffirmed 2026 guidance of $4.4B–$4.7B midpoint; impact of launches and price dynamics discussed.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Summary: Alnylam positions AMVUTTRA for sustained category leadership in ATTR-CM through strong launch momentum, broad access, and a multi-pronged strategy — diagnosis, care coordination, and next-gen therapies. While competition and tafamidis LOE pose headwinds, the growth trajectory remains compelling given the large undiagnosed population and ongoing partnerships.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — TD Cowen 46th Annual Health Care Conference
1. Question Answer
All right. Thank you, everyone, for coming today. This is to the TD Cowen Healthcare Conference and the fireside chat for Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. I am the covering analyst Ritu Baral. And with us from Alnylam, we have Kevin Fitzgerald, CSO; and Jeff Poulton, Chief Financial Officer. So guys, welcome. Thank you for being here. Let's start with AMVUTTRA because that's where every conversation of mine starts. And the revenue growth drivers, sustainability of growth specifically. How are you guys describing the key drivers behind AMVUTTRA's recent revenue growth? And how sustainable is this trajectory not just through 2026, but beyond?
Yes. Thanks for the question. I'd say there's probably 2 or 3 fundamental things that underpin our confidence in the growth going forward. One is just the growth of the category in general. This is an underdiagnosed, undertreated disease. We think probably you're at about a 20%, 25% treatment rate today. And if you look back 2 or 3 years when there was only a single therapy in the market, it's been growing fairly consistently the last several years, about 40% a year. We do anticipate that you're going to continue to see robust growth on a go-forward basis. Now you've got 3 players in the market.
You're talking about treatment or diagnosis.
We're just talking about market growth, treatment...
Treat...
Treatment, right? More patients coming onto therapy. And that 40% growth in treated patients over the last several years has been with one therapy in the market. What's been the standard of care, Pfizer's product. And you've got 3 companies in the market today, all investing behind disease awareness and driving treatment rates. And so that should be something that we have a lot of confidence in that that's going to continue to grow at a brisk pace. So that's one. Second is market access, which, as you know, Ritu, was a pretty significant debate prior to our launch in terms of being a Part B med, Part B buy-and-bill drug with a higher price than the other Part D products that are in the market.
How is that going to work for Alnylam. We're in the second calendar year of the launch today, and I would say it's worked very well. We have 90%-plus percentage of patients today have access to AMVUTTRA is a first-line therapy. And so we have not seen access be a headwind for the brand, and we don't think that is going to change over a period of time. And so -- but we'll continue to stay focused on that. Payers and plans have the ability on an annual basis to look at policies. We feel very good about 2026 in terms of access to AMVUTTRA.
And then lastly, of course, is preference, right? Market share, right? What's going to drive the brand first in the first-line part of the market, which is really where we have been very focused since launch is driving preference for AMVUTTRA. It's a progressive fatal disease and patient should be on the best, most potent therapy as early as they can. We think based on the data from HELIOS-B that we have the ability to argue that AMVUTTRA should be the treatment of choice. We shared some share data at JPMorgan through the end of the third quarter that showed our share in the first-line part of the market sort of mid- to high 20s. That's really been a focus for us...
And has that been increasing since then?
I mean we haven't given data for beyond the third quarter, but we feel very good about the positioning of the product in the first-line part of the market...
Was that your internal target, that level? Or are you continuing to see more room for growth...
Yes. I mean I don't think we put out a target. I mean what we've put out in terms of forward-looking information is on 2026 revenue guidance. We guided for the franchise $4.4 billion to $4.7 billion, which would be 83% growth at the midpoint, which would be more than $2 billion in revenue growth on a year-over-year basis. And then longer term, at JPMorgan with the Alnylam 2030 guidance that we put out, we did put a total revenue CAGR out over that period of a 25% total revenue CAGR. And that's not only product sales, that's collaboration revenue and royalty. But certainly, the biggest driver of that revenue CAGR over the period is going to be the TTR franchise. So again, I think that speaks to the confidence that we have in terms of the positioning of the product and the ability of that product to drive durable long-term growth for Alnylam.
As we think about commercial focus, is it really on expanding the first-line percentage and seeing that number?
Yes. I mean I think if we're success -- we think if we're successful in the first-line part of the market, which is the largest segment, that's where you have the opportunity to get access to the most patients. If we're successful there, then that we think will support also success in the second-line part of the market. And we've been very successful since launch in the second-line part of the market. But we've really been focused on driving that first-line share. That's been the focus.
How has payer contracting evolved and step edits now that you're a growing line item and therefore, are payers starting to pay attention.
I mean we've got '26 payer policies that are all set, and we have not seen any...
But not permanently, so they can always...
Every year, they have the ability to do this, but the '26 plans have been set, and there hasn't really been any change from '25 to '26 in terms of access to AMVUTTRA. Again, we're more than 90% of the patients today have access to AMVUTTRA in the first-line setting...
With no step edit.
No step edits. Again, maybe we should just talk about the payer mix. I mean this is a -- given the nature of the disease, this is a heavy-Medicare population. So it's probably about 80% of the patients that are on AMVUTTRA, whether that be for polyneuropathy or for cardiomyopathy, are Medicare patients. And then that Medicare part of the market is split roughly 50-50 between fee-for-service original Medicare part of the market and Medicare Advantage. And just as a reminder, in the original Medicare part of the market, there's no payer policies. There's no management of that part of the Medicare market. So that's obviously a very good segment for us in terms of access.
The fee-for-service.
Yes. The fee-for-service, there's no policies. There's nobody managing that part of the market. The Medicare Advantage, which is really where there was a lot of debate, I think, coming into the launch...
They do cross-manage the B and D.
Very, very little. I mean we have seen very little. Look, I think from a systems perspective to cross-manage B and D is challenging for payers. And so we've seen very little of that in the Medicare Advantage part of the market. So that's almost all first-line opportunity. The smaller part of the market is the commercial part of the market. So that's what's 15%, 20% -- and that's where we did anticipate some cross-management between B and D, and we've seen some of that, right? So that's where the steps are, right? That's where the majority of the steps are in the commercial part of the market. But again, that's a smaller part of the market.
What kind of step edits and what sort of documentation?
I mean it varies by plan, right? In terms of what you have to provide to work your way through the step. And look, we have the ability to support patients and offices when there are steps in place, but it really does vary by plan. There's not a single approach to how those steps are put in place.
How do you assess the midterm competitive threat from WAINUA? I mean, it's not near-term, that data is later this year -- the Phase III...
Yes. Look, this is -- I think one thing that's good with more competitors is what we talked about earlier that this is still largely an underdiagnosed and undertreated patient population. So the more voices that you have, the more it drives those things, and that can be good for everybody that's in the space. So I think I'd start there, number one. It's hard to comment too much further until we see their data. I mean I think there's a few things that -- number one, I'd say is just in terms of the -- how rapidly we knock down TTR, we probably have an advantage there in terms of time to get to there...
So a potential differentiator.
It could be -- I mean, we're going to have to see the data in terms of whether or not that translates into efficacy, but that's one. I think we're going to be very interested to look at the safety data in that study. I mean there's been renal tox issues with ASOs in the past. This is clearly a different molecule. But this is a -- in the cardiomyopathy setting, this is an older, frailer population. So it's going to be interesting to see if there are any safety signals there that could have an impact. In terms of how these products are dosed, we're once a quarter dosed, we're Part B, right? So that's physician administered their Part D once a month. So 4 times a year versus 12, majority of patients would prefer fewer injections to more injections.
You can get our products at home. You can have it administered in the home. So that's one differentiator. And then lastly, I think maybe it's instructive to look at what's happened in the polyneuropathy space since they came into the market. So in the U.S., they launched in polyneuropathy at the start of 2024. And if you look at the growth of our PN business prior to their launch, post their launch, you really didn't see any change in the trajectory of the polyneuropathy business.
And I think what's happened over time is, with the second entrant in the polyneuropathy part of the market in the U.S. The pie started to expand faster, just as what I said before in terms of another voice, but we're getting majority of that business. We probably have gotten 70% of the new patient starts since they launched in polyneuropathy. So that leadership position that we have, that kind of firmly established position was very helpful in polyneuropathy. We believe that we're going to have a similar situation in the cardiomyopathy part of the market with the head start that we've had on them.
One thing you've been able to do to really lock in that PN market was contracting, whether it was -- I'm still not sure, but I inferred there was certainly ex-U.S. contracting, national orders, national pricing in place. Is that something that you -- is that a strategy you can adopt for cardiomyopathy, whether U.S. and ex-U.S.?
Yes. I mean we're not doing any contracting in the U.S. today per se, right? So I don't think that, that's going to be part of the plan going forward in terms of competition with WAINUA ex-U.S., again, the dynamics are obviously a little bit different around sort of pricing and access than they are in the U.S.
Patient sizes as well. But...
Yes. I mean the polyneuropathy part of the market has been -- it is a much more mature market outside the U.S. because tafamidis got approved outside the U.S. for polyneuropathy and really built that part of the market. That didn't happen in the U.S. And so we were really building the polyneuropathy market in the U.S. with ONPATTRO many years ago. So the dynamics are just a little bit different in polyneuropathy, U.S., ex-U.S.
How do you hope next-gen will evolve into the TTR landscape? This is nucresiran -- and how is enrollment in TRITON.
Yes. I mean we're early days, but I would say enrollment is on track in terms of the plans that we had, and we're really excited about this opportunity. This is a next-gen, so uses different chemistry and allows us to dose less frequently. So we're looking at twice a year dosing, so once every 6 months and deeper knockdown and I would say sort of less variability around that deeper knockdown. So our belief is that, that could translate to better efficacy. We're looking at 95% knockdown versus mid-80s knockdown. And again, TRITON spread around 95% than it is around 85%.
So do you think that's going to end up representing sort of a linear improvement in outcomes?
Again, I think it's hard to say. I think the best data that we have, and looking at deeper knockdown and what efficacy benefits that you see, is in polyneuropathy on mNIS+7. And we do see certainly a relationship with deeper knockdown leads to better efficacy. So I think we're hopeful that we'll see that. We've got 2 studies underway with nucresiran, 2 Phase III studies right now, a polyneuropathy study that is very similar in design to what we did with HELIOS-A and that will read out.
With the same APOLLO-A control arm?
Yes. Yes. And that would be a 2028 launch is the expectation. And then we've got an outcome study for cardiomyopathy that's largely going to be a study that's going to be run on top of tafamidis, much bigger study than polyneuropathy study. This is about 1,200 patients...
What percentage do you think is going to be on top of.
Most will be on taf, right? And I think...
Like 80%, 90%...
I don't think we've put out a percentage, but it's certainly going to be mostly going to be on top of taf. And I think, look, the confidence level that we're going to have a successful study there is based on what we saw in the combination subgroup in HELIOS-B, where we actually saw very good efficacy on top of tafamidis. And actually, that's one of the things that we think sort of speaks to the potency of our mechanism of action that on top of tafamidis, which is 40% of the patients in HELIOS-B, we saw really good efficacy on every endpoint in the study, right? So it certainly seems that the stabilizers are leaving some efficacy on the table. So we've designed the cardiomyopathy nucresiran study with -- in terms of assumptions around powering with really good data from HELIOS-B to support the assumptions that we're making.
Going back to WAINUA for one second, just reminded me of something. One thing that the WAINUA developer has been saying is that they -- based on the design of the study -- they will be able to show stat improvement on all outcomes, I believe, all cardiac outcomes versus taf background. And you have similar data, but not exact data. Can you -- if they're saying that's their differentiator, what do you have to?
And they've got a powering -- their study is powered, right? They've got 1,400 patients in the study, 50% of those are the tafamidis subgroup. So it's a much larger study. We had 40% of the patients in HELIOS-B; it was 655 patients in total, 40% were on taf at baseline, so a much smaller sample size. So they've got a powering advantage, right? So I think our expectation is that they will show stat sig in that subgroup. Now we have data in our label on that subgroup of patients.
It's a different endpoint, but yes.
I mean the primary endpoint is very similar, right? And we have data that shows in that subgroup that there was an advantage. It's in the label, and that should be supportive of physicians using that product in combination. We are seeing some combination use today. That's more restricted, I would say, from a payer standpoint, and we don't think that, that will open up more broadly until path goes generic. But look, we think that based on that data that we can compete in that part of the market when combination therapy becomes more open from a payer standpoint.
And the nucresiran study that we talked about earlier is powered, right? In that patient population on top of tafamidis based on the way we've designed that study and the cardiomyopathy readout and launch would be expected in 2030. So we feel comfortable that we're going to be able to compete effectively even in the combination part of the market, first with AMVUTTRA based on the data we have and then certainly with vutrisiran to follow.
So last question on TTR before we move to Kevin in the pipeline. How do you see nucresiran in terms of how we model things? Are you looking at it as sort of continuation of market expansion and sort of keeping the growth going? Or at that point, in 2030, are we looking at sort of duration of franchise as an asset and sort of consolidation?
Yes. I mean I think it will consolidate the TTR business if it has the profile that we think it will, meaning patients would certainly prefer to be on a less frequently administered product, particularly if we have efficacy that looks like it has an advantage. So I do think it will consolidate the TTR business, which is going to be very good for us from a financial perspective.
Margins perspective.
No royalty burden. We've talked about 30% operating margins through 2030 and then the ability to really expand to probably at least mid-40s with a successful nucresiran launch. But I think it will also continue to grow the franchise longer term. Like again, this is a large rare disease that's undertreated today. Beyond 2030, there's still going to be plenty of opportunity to keep driving penetration rates deeper. And I think nucresiran will position us to continue to not only consolidate the AMVUTTRA business, but continue to grow the franchise overall beyond 2030.
With that, we're going to move to the pipeline and the biggest topic that I get talking to investors about the pipeline. This is what I call my airport lounge bar conversation when we're all delayed on flights. What asset in the pipeline should we be focusing on now? What's an internal priority for Alnylam amongst the myriad? I mean this is the downside of having such a rich pipeline, right? Where do you focus? What's the next lever?
Let's talk about the pipeline in general -- zilebesiran. So here's we'll talk about the cardiometabolic franchise in general. We've got zilebesiran for blood pressure. We've got GRB14, which is for diabetes, right? And then we have recently put in the clinic ACVR1c for obesity. So we'll start with zilebesiran, and we can also talk a little bit about how you might combine some of those. So zilebesiran is this product that literally takes blood pressure down and holds it there, right? And so what we know similar to how it's linear between lowering LDL cholesterol and outcomes, blood pressure, if you lower it and keep it down, you do better on outcomes.
And in fact, when we looked at the human genetics, the variability in blood pressure, if you go up and down, say you are taking your medication, you're off or it wears off and you spike in blood pressure, it's those spikes actually that are bad for the blood vessels. So overall, the profile of something that comes down unique in the industry and keeps your blood pressure low, we think, is really, really exciting.
And we're in a Phase III outcome trial to show that, right? That over time that, that benefit accrues right? So we're very excited about that program. If you look in GRB14 there hasn't been a new novel insulin sensitizer in years, right? And so there's a program where the human genetics is clear that if you lower this protein, you actually prevent that Type 2 diabetes. And so I think it's an insulin sensitizer and that it controls the level of the insulin -- of the insulin receptor itself.
Where are we getting...
We're in Phase II. So we're going to look for data in diabetics by the end of the year.
By that proof of concept -- and that endpoint, you're just looking at HbA1c or like fasting glucose...
No, we're also doing clamps actually.
Clamps.
Both. So there's a subpopulation where we're doing -- we have our program targeting plasminogen, which that's a program where, again, the human genetics, we set out looking for something that could be a universal hemostatic agent without thrombotic risk. So as you look across the targets that people have chosen over the years, most of them genetically carry thrombotic risk because when you change that pathway more towards clotting. So this particular target, plasminogen, what we found profoundly was that individuals could lower the rates of bleeding without a thrombotic risk. And so now we're in a number, there's about 3 million or more patients that have bleeding disorders and only a small segment of them with hemophilia really have treatments. And so we're very excited about -- we've gone into HHT.
What percentage does that -- like non-hemophilia bleeding disorders?
It's the majority of...
It's like 95-plus million. Okay, 90-plus percent -- of that 3 million.
Yes. 3 million.
3 million.
So we started out in an indication HHT, which these individuals actually have fragile blood vessels. And so they bleed constantly, so they can have nosebleeds that last for 2 hours...
What's the particular prevalence for HHT?
There's about -- we probably think between 40,000 to 90,000 of those individuals, and they -- a lot of them actually need to have transfusions. And so this is not just they bleed from their gums. And so we're in a Phase II trial. They're now in patients. And so again, we'll be looking to have data by the end of the year around how that's impacting them. And then we're filing in a second indication that we haven't yet named.
You've discussed some additional indications. Can you walk us through those in the market?
Well, so again, there's a number of them. There's things like hemophilia, right? There's things like von Willebrand disease. There's a couple of others that are smaller. And so we're going to walk through them because we think that this really is going to have benefit in all of those patients.
How do you think of the development path for this asset? Is this something where like you could have 2 trials in similar -- or different, but similar disease populations that could support an approval for the drug?
I mean I think we're going to do for -- the good news is that a lot of the readouts are sort of binary, right? So you have really hard outcomes, which is bleeding, no bleeding. And so as you walk across them, we'll probably do somewhat standard trials in some of them. And as you get to the more sort of the less prevalent diseases, you might think about something like a basket trial.
You have a Phase Ib Huntington's trial with [ HTT02 ] reading out in the second half, too. Can you walk us through those key endpoints and how you see the interpretation of that mechanism evolving, given the overlap of the mechanism with gene therapy and efficacy [indiscernible] data?
Yes. So let's start out with Huntington's devastating disease. And we are going in with a very specific mechanism, which is that we're hitting this thing called exon 1, right? So there's exon 1 and there's the full length. So this is a disease where you have both of those playing an important role. So you really want to hit exon 1. And it wasn't known in the field for a long time that exon 1 was important.
But now as this has evolved, it's very clear that exon 1 is part of that disease. And so we have unique mechanism here where we have an RNAi that targets that. It took us a little bit extra time to actually figure out how to do that, but we've got a really nice molecule that does that. We're in Phase I. We're looking at lowering in patients, have data by the end of the year that will look at safety of that molecule as well as a degree of lowering and we're looking for something maybe 40%, 50%. That's where the field thinks there'll be significant benefit for...
40% to 50% knockdown...
Knockdown. And so I think the uniQure data -- I don't like to comment on other people's data, it was a very small trial -- but I think if anything, that if you sort of read the tea leaves, it does look like that's the only other thing out there that's an exon 1 mechanism. I mean it maybe seemed to have some hints. I think the FDA has come back and said they want to see a bigger controlled study, but that's...
Putting the landscape together and if you do target this 40% to 50% knockdown for the next study, speculating, obviously, on contingent data, but speculating how long do you think you need to treat before you start moving the endpoints that FDA cares about?
I mean I'm not going to speculate on our Phase II design, but I think we're still looking at the data. There are natural history studies that are coming out of the progression of the disease. There are neurological endpoints that you're going to want to look at, but we're in the midst of sort of figuring out exactly how long and what those endpoints should be with all the KOLs.
In our last few minutes, I want to talk about next 5 years and long term. This is the conversation that I have with the generalists that are really looking on the long term. Are you going to be focused on maintaining and growing profitability or more on pipeline development and expansion into new therapeutic areas? I mean you guys used to be the R&D engine. You had a huge pipeline and absolutely no profits. And a huge R&D budget, which you reined in from some of your first few years, we've had that conversation. So how is that balance evolving?
Yes. This is where I think the Alnylam 2030 set of goals that we shared a couple of months ago is really helpful because I do think it sort of gives a picture of where we're going. Just to recap, I mean, that's really focused on 3 things. One is leadership in TTR, which we talked about earlier. Two is about, frankly, expanding the pipeline and creating opportunities to grow durably beyond TTR. We can talk about that more in a second. And then it's really about how we're going to scale the business financially. So we talked about the top line growth expectations, right? We set a 25% CAGR.
And then we provided our view of operating margins across the period, and we're looking at 30% across the period. So let me walk through that because there were a lot of questions about that. And frankly, we anticipated that because the market, if you looked at consensus going into JPMorgan and you look out 5 years, the market's expectations in terms of profitability were frankly much higher. They were at about 50%, actually better than 50% operating margins.
And that's really, really difficult, if not impossible, with the gross margin. With the cost and the royalty. Yes. Our gross margins are at about 75%. So to have operating margins of 50% when you're frankly starting at 75%, but that just doesn't leave enough room for investment in SG&A and R&D to be at that level. So we needed to be really clear about that with the market. And one of the things that we clarified is how we intend to invest in R&D across the period, and we did set a goal of 30% of revenues reinvested in R&D.
We think that's a prudent allocation of capital. Kevin talked about a lot of the things that are in the pipeline today that are going to drive that growth in the years ahead. Primarily, this is going to be focused on internal innovation. And again, I think that's smart given the success that we've had with the platform and the approach that we've taken historically in terms of how we use genetics to drive targets and things that we bring into the clinic. That's not going to change. We're very focused on opening up new tissues, right? We've got a goal to be in 10 tissues by 2030.
And maybe the harder R&D goal that we gave, very specific goal was to have 2-plus new therapies either in the market or line of sight to being in the market that can drive substantial growth that are beyond TTR, right? Really, we're really focused on trying to -- we're focused on protecting and growing TTR, but we want to make sure that we can diversify the business. And so that's why we've selected 30% as the place that we see the right investment rate to drive that kind of growth in the pipeline and innovation across the period.
So speaking of potential in-licensing, how -- like what therapeutic areas are you looking into? Or is it going to be more of a technology delivery focus thing to.
Maybe I'll clarify what we said about business development, and then I'll let Kevin maybe comment further on the types of things that we might be interested in. So that 30% reinvestment rate of revenues into R&D, we said primarily is going to be driven by internal, right? R&D. So our focus on RNAi. We said that we would start to add selective business development into that mix. That's included in that 30% reinvestment rate. So we do think that we will start to look at external innovation as...
And that's within the 30%...
It's within the 30%, right? We've left ourselves headroom for external innovation in that 30% -- so maybe I'll let Kevin talk about sort of our approach and how we might think about external innovation.
Yes. So I'd say I'm a drug hunter, right? So in a lot of ways, you're looking for both things that can enhance your technology, right? So what's...
Delivery...
Well, either delivery or a modality that maybe you can combine, right? With an RNAi. So as you start to think about things like that, there are -- for instance, our cemdisiran program with Regeneron for certain indications, it's an antibody with an siRNA, right? So you can get very creative about how you take RNAi as a foundation and maybe add something to it as well as if you start to think through delivery to 10 different tissues, there may be somebody that has a delivery modality that they're using for something else that you can repurpose for delivery to RNAi.
Any favorite therapeutic areas or strategic approach to therapeutic areas? I mean, you've obviously evolved from like an orphan company to targeting much larger indications. TTR is incredibly cuspy if you look at models on whether it's orphan or not. Your partner programs are large. And are you looking for commercial synergies for the marketing force as you look at?
I would say as we look at assets internally and externally, if there's something that fits within a franchise or a therapeutic area. It gets a little bit of weight. I think on the other hand, I'm always looking for what could be the next franchise right? So we're going to be very opportunistic. If there is another large indication where there's high unmet medical need where we think we can really make a huge difference, we'll go there.
And there is the willingness to spend on the SG&A in the midterm.
Yes. I mean I think external opportunities that we're looking at, probably earlier stage is probably much more likely at this point. Again, we've given a pretty robust top line growth expectation across the period. So we don't need to buy near-term revenue. So it's more likely that we're going to see things that are earlier in development that we've been investing internally...
With that, we are a little over time. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Kevin.
Thank you.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — TD Cowen 46th Annual Health Care Conference
🎯 Key Message
- Takeaway AMVUTTRA growth remains durable as ATTR remains underdiagnosed/undertreated. 2026 revenue guide of $4.4–$4.7B (~83% YoY at midpoint) and 25% revenue CAGR to 2030, funded by ~30% R&D reinvestment; diversification beyond TTR via nucresiran and new assets.
🗺️ Strategic Highlights
- Market AMVUTTRA strengthens first-line share with >90% access and minimal step edits, underpinning solid top-line growth and payer stability.
- Franchise Nucresiran could consolidate and extend the TTR franchise, with potential margin upside and a long-run growth path beyond AMVUTTRA.
- Pipeline Plan includes 10 tissues by 2030 and 2+ new therapies beyond TTR, financed by about 30% of revenue reinvested in R&D, plus selective business development.
🆕 New Information
- Pipeline updates Zilebesiran Phase III outcomes anticipated; GRB14 Phase II data expected by year-end; ACVR1c in clinic for obesity; plasminogen program in Phase II for bleeding disorders with year-end data; Huntington's HTT02 Phase I data expected later this year.
❓ Analyst Q&A
- Competition Asked about WAINUA; management cited dosing convenience, potential combination data, and label context, maintaining a leadership position in first-line use.
- Nucresiran framing Discussed as a potential to consolidate the TTR franchise and help lift long-term margins, alongside ongoing 30% R&D reinvestment target.
- R&D strategy Emphasized internal focus with selective external BD within the 30% reinvestment budget to enable new franchises beyond TTR.
⚡ Bottom Line
The event reinforces AMVUTTRA as the growth engine with durable, multi-year momentum, supported by a clear 2030 plan and disciplined capital allocation. A diversified pipeline and select external innovation aim to extend the franchise beyond TTR while preserving profitability.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Q4 2025 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Q4 and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call.
[Operator Instructions]
This call is being recorded on Thursday, February 12, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Christina Kensch. Please go ahead.
Good morning. I'm Christine Akinc, Chief Corporate Communications Officer at Alnylam. With me today are Yvonne Greenstreet, Chief Executive Officer; Tolga Tanguler, Chief Commercial Officer; Pushkal Garg, Chief Research and Development Officer; and Jeff Poulton, Chief Financial Officer.
For those of you participating via conference call, the accompanying slides can be accessed by going to the Events section of the Investors page of our website, investors.alnylam.com/events. During today's call, as outlined in Slide 2, Yvonne will offer introductory remarks and provide some general context. Tolga will provide an update on our global commercial progress. Pushkal will review pipeline updates, clinical progress and upcoming milestones, and Jeff will review our financials and guidance before we open the call to your questions.
I would like to remind you that this call will contain remarks concerning Alnylam's future expectations, plans and prospects, which constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the safe harbor provision under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in our most recent periodic report on file with the SEC. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent our views only as of the date of this recording and should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date. We specifically disclaim any obligations to update such statements. With that, I'll turn the call over to Yvonne. Yvonne?
Thanks, Christine, and thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. Alnylam possesses a truly unique profile in the biotech industry, underpinned by our established and sustainable innovation engine, coupled with commercial excellence, driving durable long-term growth. We're the leaders in RNAi therapeutics with a proven organic product engine and a reproducible and modular process for developing our medicines that has resulted in outsized historical success rates. We also have a high-yielding pipeline with over 25 programs currently in active clinical development. And there are now 6 Alnylam invented medicines on the market that are collectively generating several billion dollars in annual revenues and treating hundreds of thousands of patients around the world. This broad execution across all areas of the business was clearly evident in 2025, which was a transformational year for Alnylam.
In terms of commercial and financial performance, we achieved a landmark approval of AMVUTTRA for ATTR cardiomyopathy and driven by the success of that launch, delivered nearly $3 billion in combined net product revenues, which was 81% growth compared to 2024. Importantly, we met or exceeded all of our ambitious Alnylam [indiscernible] 25 goals. And with today's announcement, we can now officially declare that we have achieved GAAP profitability for the 2025 full year and expect to sustain profitability going forward.
On the pipeline and platform side, in 2025, we initiated 3 Phase III studies and expanded our clinical pipeline with 4 proprietary CTAs in addition to the 5 that were filed by our partners. We also developed and launched a potential best-in-class enzymatic ligation based RNAi manufacturing platform called siRELIS. We believe this platform will enable us to greatly expand our capacity and bring RNAi therapeutics to more patients around the world while reducing the cost of goods. While 2025 was a defining year for the company, we're now focused firmly on the future, harnessing our success to accelerate innovation and scale impact. To that end, we're excited to have recently shared our new set of 5-year goals on Alnylam 2030. And these goals rest upon 3 strategic pillars, starting with achieving global TTR leadership while building a durable TTR franchise. We aspire to lead this market in revenue by 2030 and across the period and to launch nucresiran in 2028 for polyneuropathy and 2030 for cardiomyopathy.
The next pillar is growing through sustainable innovation where we plan to deliver 2 or more transformative medicines beyond TTR that have blockbuster potential. We also aspire to achieve delivery of RNAi to 10 tissue types and have a pipeline of over 40 clinical programs by the end of 2030. The high-yielding platform and outsized historical probability of success, combined with our rigorous and disciplined approach to portfolio management. We believe this is the right place to focus our efforts and resources, and we expect to invest approximately 30% of our revenues in non-GAAP R&D across the period to accelerate organic internal innovation and selectively access external innovation.
Given our expertise and leadership in this space, we believe this is a prudent allocation of capital that has the potential to deliver significant growth in the future. The final pillar of our 2030 goals is scaling with discipline and agility to drive sustained profitable growth. This includes striving to achieve over 25% revenue CAGR through the end of 2030 and to deliver a non-GAAP operating margin of approximately 30% across the period. It's important to note that this operating margin goal is only through 2030, which is the year we aim to achieve regulatory approval for nucresiran in ATTR cardiomyopathy. And if the nucresiran is successful in demonstrating the best-in-class profile that we expect, we believe it would drive swift patient uptake and given the lack of any royalty obligation for nucresiran potentially drive our operating margins to the mid-40s post 2030. Through these goals, I hope you can appreciate that we're building on Alnylam for the future, delivering continued long-term growth, underpinned primarily by our RNAi innovation platform. With that, let me now turn the call over to Tolga for a review of our commercial performance. Tolga?
Thanks, Yvonne, and good morning, everyone. It is a pleasure to show how we're continuing to bring Alnylam's transformative therapies to patients around the world. Q4 represented another quarter of strong growth for Alnylam. We delivered $995 million in combined net product revenues representing 121% growth year-over-year and 17% growth versus prior quarter. While our TTR franchise remains the primary growth engine, we're also seeing continued momentum in our rare disease business.
Let me start there. Our rare disease portfolio continues to deliver meaningful impact for patients and consistent performance for our business. In Q4, our rare franchise generated $136 million in net revenue, up 26% versus the same period last year, driven by increased patient demand and favorable order timing in partner markets. As a result, GIVLAARI and OXLUMO together became a $0.5 billion franchise in 2025, reflecting continued growth, more than 5 years post launch.
With that, let's turn to the TTR highlights. Q4 was another robust quarter for our TTR franchise, continuing the strong launch trajectory we saw in Q2 and Q3. Global TTR net revenues reached $858 million, up 18% versus the prior quarter and representing 151% growth year-over-year. In the U.S., net revenues for our TTR franchise grew 20% compared with Q3, '25 versus 222% versus Q4 2024. The quarter-over-quarter growth was primarily driven by a continued increase in U.S. patient demand, partially offset by an increase in gross net deductions and an unfavorable inventory channel impact. Outside the U.S., revenues grew 13% versus the prior quarter and 47% year-over-year, underscoring continued global momentum. We continue to be very pleased with the early signs in Japan, roughly 6 months into the CM launch as we continue to track in line with leading launch analogs in the industry. In Germany, we recently aligned pricing for AMVUTTRA for the ATTR-CM opportunity, reflecting the significant larger prevalence of the CM indication relative to polyneuropathy indication. As expected, this will create a modest near-term impact on total TTR revenue in Q1. But importantly, it positions us to compete effectively and participate in a substantially larger CM market in Germany.
As we have previously mentioned, we anticipate launching AMVUTTRA for ATTR cardiomyopathy in additional international markets throughout 2026 following the completion of local pricing and reimbursement reviews. As we continue to launch across ex U.S. markets, we are building global momentum that we expect to carry through 2026 and beyond. Finally, our international performance reflects the continued strength of our hereditary ATTR polyneuropathy legacy business, which remains robust despite competition. Broader engagement in the category is expanding awareness and diagnosis, ultimately benefiting patients and reinforcing Alnylam's leadership role in shaping the field.
Now let's turn to the U.S. ATTR-CM specific dynamics. Looking back on 2025, our confidence in the size growth and continued underpenetration of the ATTR-CM category has been reinforced. Despite approximately 40% volume CAGR over the past 6 years, the majority of patients with ATTR cardiomyopathy remain untreated. Against that backdrop, we are highly encouraged by AMVUTTRA's early momentum. In its first few quarters, performance relative to relevant specialty analogs supports the potential for a breakout launch, reflecting strong customer demand, the value of our AMVUTTRA's differentiated profile and disciplined commercial execution.
When we look at the early launch data, what's most encouraging is not just the pace of uptake, but where AMVUTTRA is being used and why? First, AMVUTTRA is rapidly establishing itself as an important choice in new treatment starts. By just the second quarter post launch, AMVUTTRA approached parity with tafamidis in share of new starts based on available estimates. While these available data will continue to evolve, the early signal is clear. prescribing dynamics in ATTR-CM are shifting.
Second, we're gaining traction in first-line patients, establishing AMVUTTRA as a first-line option remains our strategic priority, and we're making meaningful progress. In parallel, AMVUTTRA has quickly become the preferred option for stabilize and progress their patients consistent with its differentiated and orthogonal mechanism of action. Third, this momentum is underpinned by broad and durable access. Following completion of our '26 payer policy discussion, we can look ahead with increased confidence to even broader patient access for AMVUTTRA in 2026 versus last year.
Over 90% of payers now provide first-line coverage with the large majority of patients able to initiate treatment without step-through requirements. Most patients incur 0 out-of-pocket costs and approximately 90% can access treatment within 10 miles of their home, supported by a broad, well-established network sites of care. As we enter '26, we remain clear-eyed about where we are. The ATTR-CM launch is still in its early stages, just 3 quarters in, and there is important work ahead. At the same time, we have established the foundations for durable growth. underpinned by a strong value proposition, broad access and steadily increasing customer demand.
Looking forward, we see meaningful opportunity to further expand the category by improving diagnosis and treatment rates. And we are investing accordingly through targeted efforts in education and awareness, evidence generation and diagnosis enablement to ensure sustainable long-term impact for patients. We look forward to sharing more details at our upcoming investor webinar where we will mark the 1-year anniversary of AMVUTTRA's USFDA approval for ATTR cardiomyopathy on March 24, 2026, and highlight our progress for patients and the long-term growth and durability of our TTR franchise.
With that, I'll hand over to Pushkal.
Thank you, Tolga, and good morning, everyone. As Yvonne highlighted earlier, 2025 was indeed a year of substantial pipeline progress and platform innovation for Alnylam. First, we initiated 3 Phase III studies in 2025. Zenith is our event-driven cardiovascular outcomes trial for zilebesiran in patients with uncontrolled hypertension at high CV risk. We aim to enroll approximately 11,000 patients and have successful plan to launch around 2030. Triton-CM is our event-driven outcome troughed for nucresiran in ATTR-CM. Approximately 1,200 patients will be enrolled in this study with launch also expected in 2030, if successful. And Triton-PN is an open-label study of nucresiran in approximately 125 patients with hereditary ATTR polyneuropathy, if successful approval in this indication is expected in 2028. We also expanded our clinical pipeline, taking 4 new Alnylam-led programs into the clinic, ALN-2232, our first RNAi therapeutic directed to an adipose target, ACVR1c, with the potential to lead to durable weight loss, particularly reduction in visceral fat that is associated with poor cardio-metabolic health; ALN-5288, carding MAPT, or tau, for Alzheimer's disease and other rare tauopathies and 2 new programs for which we are not yet disclosing details to 2 competitive reasons, ALN-4285 and ALN-4915.
Our partnerships also continue to generate progress for 5 new partner-led programs entering the clinic in 2025 across a range of indications with significant unmet need. We're also excited for our partners at Regeneron. We remain on track to submit a U.S. regulatory application in the first quarter for cemdisiran in generalized myasthenia gravis with potential approval anticipated later this year or early 2027. And finally, as Yvonne mentioned, we also launched -- we also launched siRELIS, our proprietary enzymatic ligation manufacturing platform. As a result, we ended 2025 with a pipeline of over 25 clinical programs, spanning multiple therapeutic areas across rare specialty and prevalent indications, representing a tremendous opportunity for improving patient health and creating value in the years ahead.
Among these many programs, there are several that represent the next wave of transformative near-term RNAi therapeutics from Alnylam each of which has multibillion dollar potential. In the cardiovascular metabolic space, we're excited about zilebesiran, targeting angiotensinogen with the aim of achieving continuous control of blood pressure with just 2 doses per year. For metabolic diseases, we see compelling opportunities to address substantial unmet medical need in gaps in treatment left by GLP-1s in both overweight obesity and type 2 diabetes.
And in neuroscience, Mivelsiran targets amyloid precursor protein for the potential treatment of cerebral amyloid angiopathy and Alzheimer's disease. APP is a genetically validated target for both of these diseases and CAA, in particular, represents a blue ocean opportunity. ALN-HTT02 employs a unique exon 1 targeting approach with the potential to address Huntington's disease, a disease with no approved therapies through deep and widespread lowering of the Huntington protein in the brain. And in hematology, ALN-6400 offers an exciting opportunity for a pipeline and a product, targeting plasminogen to address a wide range of bleeding disorders with a unique approach that has the potential to reduce bleeding without increasing the risk of thrombosis.
Our first indication is hereditary hemorrhagic [indiscernible] which affects approximately 70,000 patients in the United States. We'll share important updates across many of these programs over the year, as outlined in our 2026 pipeline goals. In the first half of the year, we plan to complete enrollment in the CAPRICORN 1 Phase II trial of nivelsiran in patients with CAA and initiate 3 Phase II trials. The first of these has already been achieved, which is a Phase II study of ALN-4324 for patients with type 2 diabetes. The study is now actively enrolling patients, one for revelsiran in patients with Alzheimer's disease and another for ALN-6400 in a second bleeding disorder. Importantly, we expect to have clinical derisking data this year on several of the programs I just mentioned. Specifically, we expect to share Phase I and II results from the ALN-6400 program and Phase I data on both our Huntington's and ACVR1C programs in the second half of the year. And with that, let me now turn it over to Jeff to review our financial results and 2026 guidance. Jeff?
Thanks, Pushkal, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be presenting a summary of Alnylam's full year 2025 financial results and providing our comprehensive financial guidance for 2026. Let's begin with a summary of our P&L results for the full year. Total global net product revenues for 2025 were nearly $3 billion or 81% growth versus 2024, driven by a more than doubling of revenue in our TTR franchise primarily from the strong performance in the U.S. following our Q2 launch of AMVUTTRA and ATTR cardiomyopathy. These full year results were more than $800 million above the original 2025 product sales guidance we provided last year, a testament to the strength of our ATTR-CM launch performance. For the full year, collaboration revenue was $553 million or 8% growth compared with 2024 and included a $300 million development milestone in Q3 associated with the dosing of the first patient in our Zenith Phase III cardiovascular outcomes trial for zilebesiran. Royalty revenue for the full year was $174 million, representing a 90% increase compared with last year, driven by higher LEQVIO sales from Novartis. Gross margin on product sales was 77% for the full year representing a 4% decrease compared with 2024. The decrease in margin was primarily driven by increased royalties on AMVUTTRA as higher revenues in 2025 resulted in an increase in the average royalty rate payable to Sanofi compared with the prior year.
Our non-GAAP R&D expenses of approximately $1.2 billion increased 17% compared to last year primarily driven by costs associated with the initiation of 3 Phase III clinical studies, including the Zenith Phase III cardiovascular outcomes trial for zilebesiran and the TRITON-CM and PN studies for nucresiran. Non-GAAP SG&A expenses of approximately $1 billion increased 22% compared to last year, primarily driven by increased investments in support of the AMVUTTRA ATTR-CM launch in the U.S. we achieved full year non-GAAP operating income of $850 million, representing a $755 million increase compared with last year, driven primarily by the strong top line results that I previously highlighted. I'm also pleased to share today that we achieved profitability on both a GAAP and non-GAAP net income basis, both in the fourth quarter and for the full year 2025 and more than delivering on our [indiscernible] by [ '25 ] non-GAAP profitability goal.
I'd like to take a moment to thank the Alnylam employees who made this milestone possible through their active engagement and scaling our business with discipline over the past 5 years. Finally, we ended the year with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $2.9 billion compared with $2.7 billion at the end of 2024. The primary drivers of the $200 million increase in cash during the year include improved operating performance and proceeds from the exercise of stock options, partially offset by net proceeds utilized during our convertible refinancing in Q3.
Now I'd like to turn to our financial guidance for 2026. Starting with net product revenues, we are reiterating the combined net product revenue guidance for AMVUTTRA, ONPATTRO, GIVLAARI and OXLUMO that we communicated in our JPMorgan press release dated January 11, 2026. We anticipate combined net product sales for our 4 commercial products will be within a range of $4.9 billion to $5.3 billion, representing combined full year growth compared to 2025 of 71% at the midpoint of the guidance range or more than $2.1 billion in growth. On a franchise level, the guidance is broken down as follows: Total Rail, $500 million to $600 million, representing full year growth compared to 2025 of 10% at the midpoint of the guidance range. Total TTR, $4.4 billion to $4.7 billion representing full year growth compared to last year of 83% at the midpoint of the guidance range. As Tolga noted in his prior comments, it's still early days in the ATTR-CM launch but we are pleased with our initial momentum and the strong fundamentals which support the long-term growth potential of our TTR franchise. As we highlighted at the JPMorgan conference, the 2026 TTR product sales guidance is underpinned by 3 key assumptions: First, we anticipate U.S. TTR category growth will remain brisk and consistent with prior years. Second, in the U.S., we continue to expect a modest decrease in net price as our CM business continues to scale. Specifically, we forecast a mid-single-digit net price decrease for AMVUTTRA in 2026.
Third, given the impact on our polyneuropathy business associated with lower CM launch pricing in international markets, we expect international TTR revenue dollar growth in 2026 will be consistent with 2025. I'd also like to provide some color on Q1 phasing assumptions associated with our full year TTR revenue guidance. For Q1, we expect considerably lower quarter-on-quarter TTR revenue growth compared with the $134 million of TTR growth that we delivered in Q4 '25. The lower growth expectation in Q1 is driven by a variety of factors, including the following: First, unlike in Q4, when our international markets contributed $23 million in quarterly TTR revenue growth, we are expecting an approximate $25 million reduction in Q1 international revenues with the primary driver of the decrease attributable to our CM launch in Germany where our AMVUTTRA pricing was adjusted downward in late Q4, as Tolga previously mentioned. For the balance of the year, we expect our international markets will return to quarter-on-quarter growth as the impact of increasing volume outweighs reduced price.
Second, in the U.S., we expect more modest quarter-over-quarter TTR growth in Q1 compared with the USD 111 million of quarterly growth achieved in Q4 due to fewer product shipping weeks in Q1 and the expected impact of annual insurance reauthorizations. Beyond Q1, we expect higher quarterly growth for the balance of the year in the U.S., and we remain confident in our full year TTR product sales guidance.
Now returning to our full year 2026 financial guidance. Our collaboration and royalty revenue guidance range is $400 million to $500 million, representing a decrease of 38% compared to 2025 at the midpoint of the guidance range driven by the onetime $300 million zilebesiran development milestone achieved in 2025 that I previously mentioned that will not recur this year. We expect the collaboration revenue associated with our partnerships with Roche and Regeneron as well as LEQVIO royalties from Novartis will drive the majority of our collaboration and royalty revenue this year.
Our guidance for combined non-GAAP R&D and SG&A expense is a range between $2.7 billion and $2.8 billion, with the midpoint of the range representing 26% growth versus 2025. Growth drivers for R&D expense this year include increased investment in clinical studies including the continuation of pivotal Phase III studies for zilebesiran and nucresiran as well as early pipeline investment to deliver 3 to 4 new INDs and support expansion of delivery into new tissues. Growth in SG&A will primarily be driven by ongoing launch activities to support AMVUTTRA for ATTR-CM in the U.S. and select international markets. Let me now turn it back to Christine to coordinate our Q&A session. Christine?
Thank you, Jeff. Operator, we will now open the call for questions.
[Operator Instructions]
[Operator Instructions]
One moment for your first question. I have Paul with Stifel.
2. Question Answer
Okay. I was wondering if you could just comment on what you're seeing so far in 2026 in terms of new patient adds and the mix of first line for vutrisiran versus tafamidis switches and how you see that evolving over the course of this year and what's assumed in guidance?
Yes, that's a great question. I think it's important just to underscore how pleased we are with the AMVUTTRA launch so far. Coming out of the gate strong, we're building towards an analog beating launch and really building a long-term franchise that's incredibly important. And all the fundamentals are in place to drive continued AMVUTTRA growth, which I think is underscored by our 2026 guidance on our 2030 goals. But Tolga, maybe you will speak specifically to -- yes, I mean, how you're seeing the market.
Thanks, Yvonne. Look, as Yvonne highlighted, what really drives our confidence in reiterating the guidance is really is the fundamentals. If you think about it, we've actually improved our first-line access. We're clearly seeing a strengthening physician and patient preference and even more importantly, continued category growth with more patients entering the market. Those trends were in place heading into JPM and have continued to build, and that's why we remain confident in the year.
Your next question is from Salveen with Goldman Sachs.
If I could just follow up on the confidence here and the guide for the year for the TTR franchise. Just speak to the the choppiness that we're seeing coming out of the scripts for the first quarter to date? And then how you think about the pricing dynamics as you look to a new potential market entry this year or next year as well as kind of the growth dynamics in Europe?
Yes. So let me take the pricing question first. We feel very well positioned from an access standpoint for this year. The large majority of patients have already first-line access without required petites and most patients are continuing to pay 0 out of pocket, partly supported by our value-based agreements and in fact, utilization within those agreements have been rather minimal to date.
In terms of on our pricing, our net price declined mid-single digits in '25 and our '26 guidance assumes a similar mid-single-digit decline. And that dynamic is fully integrated into our outlook. Now in terms of '27, it's obviously too soon for us to be able to provide specific guidance, but we felt really well positioned as we enter '26.
Your next question is from Konstantinos with Oppenheimer.
Congratulations on the strong year. A question on seasonality from us. Have you seen any seasonality during the fourth quarter, potentially patients who push the injection to the next quarter because of the holidays and whether this will be a tailwind for the first quarter of 2026.
Maybe Tolga, a question for you. I mean I think we spoke to Q1 phasing and that's actually kind of very typical in the industry. But Tolga, do you want to...
Right. So I would actually really step back and start thinking about rather than on a monthly fluctuations looking at the quarterly -- the total growth of this category. If you think about the historically, while quarterly growth has fluctuated, the longer-term category trend has been one of robust and really well sustained growth. On the order of about 40 plus over the past several years. So even within Q4, we've seen momentum improved as we exited the quarter. Now, as Yvonne highlighted, Q1 has been rather specific for across the industry in terms of the seasonality. We're certainly seeing some of that, but we believe that from that seasonality is really not impacting the underlying momentum that we're building in the category.
Your next question is from Ritu with TD Cowen.
I wanted to ask about the gross to net pattern over 2026. Tolga, you mentioned mid-single digits. Is that going to be sort of a stepwise adjustment in Q1 and then flat through the rest of the year? Or is it going to be gradual? Basically, I'm asking are all the access discussions for the full year done? And also, if you can comment about per Salveen's question whether potential longer-term competitive dynamics are factoring into how you're thinking about gross to net over the year.
Maybe, Jeff, you start on the general gross net question and Tolga may have some additional perspective.
Yes, Ritu, again, the guidance for the U.S. market for pricing this year is a mid-single-digit net price decrease similar to what we did in '25, and that would be expected to be gradual over the course of the year rather than sort of all upfront in the first quarter, gradual.
Yes. And in terms of the '27 outlook, as we highlighted, it's really too soon for us to make any comments at this point. We don't know what that data is going to look like. We don't know what their label is going to look like. But what I can say is, given how well we're positioned in terms of Part B versus Part D, we believe actually we're really well positioned in terms of being able to manage our our growth. And in fact, if you think about the guidance that we provided or I should say, our objectives from 2030, we're ensuring that our 2030 CAGR growth of 25% certainly incorporates some of that thinking. We believe we're going to be able to preserve and increase the value of this category.
Your next call comes from Maury with Jefferies.
You commented a little bit on this at JPMorgan, but just wondering for the 5-year strategy, you've mentioned the select external innovation as part of the approximately 30% revenue R&D spend. Can you just elaborate on that? Should we anticipate additional partnerships like the Roche one with zilebesiran or other forms of licensing? And is there anything more on timing, size and scope of an external BD deal?
Yes. Thanks for that question. Look, I think it's important to highlight that we really are focused on our rich internal pipeline, which is truly spring loaded for growth. But given our strengthening financial position, it does make sense to start to become open to select innovation that could provide access to technologies and earlier stage medicines that are complementing our existing commercial portfolio and R&D pipeline. And I think it's important also to state that we have a very high scientific and financial bar both for our internal innovation but also as we look to assess opportunities externally as well.
Your next question comes from Tazeen with Bank of America.
You talked about the time that you could potentially launch at the beginning of the 2030s. I say, 2030-ish. How should we be thinking about the impact to your operating margin once that product becomes available -- and just practically speaking, even if it might have the better profile that you described of less frequent dosing, how long do you think it would take for patients to appreciate something like that vis-a-vis switching from AMVUTTRA to nucresiran when it becomes available?
So there are a couple of questions here. I mean I'll just reiterate maybe the remarks that I kind of made earlier, which is, I mean, we're really excited about nucresiran. We believe that if it's successful, which we have high conviction in is going to have a best-in-class profile, which is going to lead to swift patient uptake. And this is going to be without the royalty obligations for the nucresiran. So clearly, this will have a significant positive impact on our margins post 2030. And as I said, we're looking at potentially driving margins to the mid-40s by 2030.
And just to tag on to that. I mean, if you look at what consensus gross margins are for our business out to 2030, Tazeen, it's mid-70s. And I would say the vast majority of that is related to the royalty that we pay Sanofi. So that tells you about the opportunity to improve margins post 2030 if we have the kind of profile that we expect with nucresiran.
Next question is from Luca with RBC Capital Markets.
Congrats on the progress. Maybe if I can pivot to the pipeline, Pushkal, can you just talk a little bit about Huntington. Again, I'm assuming that maybe later this year, you'll show some initial pharmacodynamic data and the reduction in mutant [indiscernible] CSF, but we all know that Huntington is a relatively slowly progressive disease. So I'm assuming that the clinical data like cUHDRS is going to be pretty preliminary, would that be fair? And itself, are you willing to start the pivotal Phase III trial, we just target engagement data in hand? Or are you going to wait before doing so until you see a clear function sign there. So I guess the question is, maybe walk us through what kind of go/no-go decision to start a Phase III trial for Huntington.
Well, that's a great question, and thank you for asking a question about the Huntington's program. It's a program that we have high conviction for addressing what I think we all know is that is an incredibly devastating disease. But of course, a lot of that question, Pushkal.
Yes. Luca, happy to address it. As I mentioned, as you highlight, the unmet need in Huntington's, I think is undisputable. We're very excited about the approach we have. We have an siRNA that targets the overall Huntingon's protein, but specifically also target this exon segment that is thought to be necessary actually for disease propagation. And so we think we have a very unique approach. I think unfortunately, prior approaches haven't really addressed this. And interestingly enough, the one approach that does is the uniQure approach, and we've all seen some recent data coming from there that suggest potentially through natural history data, there may be a favorable trend there emerging in terms of efficacy.
So we're very excited about the approach. We're in a Phase I program right now in Huntington's patients where we're really trying to see convincing evidence of lowering of Huntington's as well as to safety. You'll recall that prior efforts in this space have been challenged because they can't get to high levels of knockdown beyond about 20%, and then they've been associated with safety concerns. And [indiscernible] increases cerebral ventricular enlargement, et cetera. So I think those are the first 2 things, Luca, that we're going to be looking for. Can we get to good levels of knockdown, we'd like to get to over 50% and can we do that durably and safely for a period of time.
As we've mentioned, we'll put out some data at the end of this year. You're right that I wouldn't expect a lot in terms of clinical data at that point in terms of cUHDRS. This is really relatively modest number of patients. And so -- but we're hoping that, that -- again, if we see those 2 signs. Then to your second part, look, this is, again, given the unmet need, this is a program we're very much going to try and accelerate as quickly as possible. We want to do that in a responsible way. But you look to us to see what -- anything we can do to bring this forward to patients as quickly as possible and keep you posted on that.
Your next question is Myles with William Blair.
Another one on the pipeline for obesity. Just what's the rationale for prioritizing the ACBR1c asset or the [indiscernible] for something like [indiscernible] in your Phase I trial? And then is the target product profile for that that's going to come out of that data? Is it something that's equivalent to what we're seeing from your peer in Arrowhead or are you going for something superior on the efficacy side?
Pushkal, that's one straight for you.
Yes. Thanks, Myles. So look, we -- I think we see a tremendous opportunity in the overweight obesity space and the diabetes space. I think GLP-1s have obviously revolutionize that space. But I think we all recognize there's a lot of unmet need to actually aid in weight loss, A1c reduction without the muscle loss and the tolerability issues that happened with GLP-1s. So we're bringing -- we have prioritized ACBR1c because both I think in our preclinical work, based on the genetics, preclinical models as well as, I think, some of the emerging data that you're seeing coming from Arrowhead. You see that ACBR1c appears to be the more potent target. And so we've certainly prioritized that. We are interested in [indiscernible], but we think ACVR1c is more interesting. I think I think the other point here I think is worth noting is that I think when you look at the Arrowhead and Wave data, I think there's questions about the monotherapy magnitude of weight loss that they can deliver.
And I think this is a space where we're going to have to be particularly thoughtful. I think we're uniquely positioned to be thinking about unique patient segments that we might be able to target, looking at unique combinations that can bring disproportionate benefit to patients within this space. So -- but that's the reason for prioritizing ACBR1c. And as I said, we expect to have some results to share at the end of the year.
Next question comes from Mike with Morgan Stanley.
Maybe I could ask a question just on cardiomyopathy and trends there particularly for market share. Obviously, you've had some great share gains in the second-line setting and also positive trends in the front line. Just curious, particularly in front line as we move through the year. Do you expect that -- those share trends to continue to increase?
Yes. No, we've been very pleased by the sort of broad and balanced kind of access that we're seeing, Tolga?
Yes. I mean, as you saw, Mike, in the data we shared, particularly around new-to-brand dynamics, we're approaching near parity with tafamidis and the goal was there to intent was to demonstrate that in a growing and increasingly competitive category, we've been able to make meaningful and rapid headway. Now in terms of '26, obviously, we have reiterated our full year '26 guidance. And what gives us the confidence is the continuous progress we're making in terms of first-line access, rising physician and patient preference and also importantly, healthy category growth. Those were the drivers heading into JPM, and we'll continue to see them strengthened. And that -- obviously, that momentum supports our outlook for '26.
And of course, we're going to be having our TTR webinar in at the end of March, which will be an opportunity. So when you think about how we're going to build this very exciting franchise for the future. Thanks for that plug.
Your next question comes from Ted with Piper Sandler.
Great. And just maybe digging a little bit deeper in terms of the external partnering, should we be more thinking complementary technology then from your comments earlier, Yvonne? whether that be delivery types or other RNA mechanisms?
Yes. No, I think that's absolutely correct. I mean we are looking at areas where there's good strategic fit, so opportunities are complementary to what we're doing. You touched on delivery. That's 1 potential approach to consider. We have a very exciting internal pipeline. So we're going to be very judicious about what exome innovation actually helps us accelerate our internal innovation and also complements our current portfolio. But Pushkal, do you want to add anything to that?
No, I think you've covered it, Yvonne. I think we're going to be looking at that landscape of things that are complementary from a technology perspective that help us bring medicines to more patients more rapidly.
Your next question is from [indiscernible] with Barclays.
Maybe just a big picture one across the sort of emerging early-stage pipeline, which programs are you most excited about? Or do you think are the most derisked? And then a second question, just you mentioned for the U.S., you expect a mid-single-digit net price decrease in 2026. What would you expect for 2027? Should we expect something similar or potentially more or less with a new competitor?
Well, I think it started off with trying to get to see what our favorite programs are, Pushkal?
Yes. I mean, Eli, I think like choosing between your children. So we've got some very exciting opportunities I think in terms of your question about which are most derisked, I think, look, obviously, nucresiran is about as derisked as possible. We obviously have no doubt, but TTR silencing aids in both polyneuropathy and in cardiomyopathy. And with that drug, we'll get to 95% silencing and twice year dosing. Zilebesiran has shown blood pressure lowering, compelling blood pressure lowering in 4 studies now of Phase I and III Phase IIs of increasing stringency on top of background medicines with a durable profile and there is a wealth as Professor Williams highlighted last year, ESC of data that suggests that continuous control of blood pressure should lead to outsized benefits in terms of cardiovascular outcomes. So I don't think -- I think that's fairly derisked.
I think as you look forward, we have a number of other programs where I think actually in the period of '26 and '27, we are going to get very compelling data that leads to derisking. If you think about data coming out on Huntington's, or as I just mentioned in my comments to Luca in CAA, and we will get some proof-of-concept data on a number of different programs in overweight obesity, diabetes and a number of programs that we actually haven't named. And then, of course, the plasminogen program, where we've already seen convincing data that we shared last year at R&D Day in terms of proof of mechanism that we're seeing clot stabilization, very strong genetics. So I think that's been significantly derisked.
And you see our confidence in there. We've kicked off on Phase II. We've talked about kicking off a second Phase II. And so we're moving rapidly with that program. So I'm excited about the opportunities that lie ahead. And as I said, a number of exciting potential to help patients and create value.
Yes, that's great, Pushkal. I think the really unusual story about Alnylam is actually we have a derisked organic product engine. And this gives us tremendous leverage, helping us to kind of accelerate the pace of innovation and allowing us to scale with this proven platform into what's going to be a multi-franchise growth company. And as Pushkal highlighted, there are a number of near-term opportunities for us to really turn these programs and important [indiscernible] for patients. Jeff, do you want to add any perspective?
Just on the pricing question, I think that Eli had asked about. Again, what we've said consistently, I think since we've launched in the U.S. with the cardiomyopathy and the labels, we've expected gradual net price reductions over time as the business scales. Again, we're entering year 2, right? And year 1 was mid-single-digit price decrease. That's what we're expecting in year 2 and I would say over the longer-term guidance that we've given, right, 25% CAGR, that's the expectation across the period at this point.
That's great, Jeff. And apologies when we get these multipart questions, sometimes the -- one of the question kind of slips off the list. Tolga, do you have...
Yes, I have a multipart answer as well. I mean, look, just to support Jeff's point, in terms of how anticipated new competition may impact the pricing. As we reiterated, first of all, we're really well positioned from an access perspective, we've established credibility and durability of this franchise in '26 and if you think about the potential emerging competition, we're already actually in that competitive field with the polyneuropathy indication. And we've been able to secure great access to the patients with limited co-pay.
So I think I would anticipate -- and obviously, we provided our goals for 2030, and that value growth of 25% [indiscernible] remains so we're comfortable with providing that perspective for '27 as well.
Good. Well, I hope we covered everything you asked. Next question, please.
Next question comes from Cory with Evercore ISI.
I guess it's related somewhat to what you were just talking about. But with the competitive silence or data, obviously expected this year, I'm interested in your latest views on the potential for that asset to attain a differentiated label based on their trial? And how you think about that having a potential commercial impact on AMVUTTRA if it were to actually be the case?
Okay. Well, I think there's a sort of both a kind of commercial and then also a development kind of perspective on that question. So I think, Tolga, you want to just make a few remarks and then we'll hand it over for Pushkal.
Yes. Before I turn it over to Pushkal, I mean, look, it's obviously difficult to assess the impact without seeing their data, and it would be premature to speculate on the specific role that you're going to play. That said, I think what's really important to highlight is this category remains very large and significantly underserved markets. Additional entrants will certainly help drive diagnostics and treatment rates, which we believe ultimately will benefit patients and expand the category. So from our perspective, we feel very well positioned. We have a head start given our rapid and deep and sustained knockdown profile, strong clinical data package and obviously convenient quarterly dosing. So maybe, Pushkal, you can...
Yes. I think, Cory, I think we are looking forward to seeing the results. Obviously, we don't have a magic crystal ball, we'll see what the results are. But I think our expectation is that the study will be positive. They've shown good knockdown that occurs over a period of some months. And so I would expect, and they have a large outcome study, both in monotherapy and in combination. So I would expect the results to be positive. I think we'll be on the lookout for a couple of aspects of this. First of all, obviously, we want to look at the safety profile that emerges. This is an ASO in a large population that's somewhat older and frailer. So it will be interesting to see how that emerges.
And then on the efficacy side, look, I think -- again, I think that I expect to see favorable impacts on the outcome parameters as we've shown with HELIOS-B with vutrisiran. I think there's some speculation that will they have a stronger signal, for example, in the combination because they'll have a larger number of patients on top of a background stabilizer. My hypothesis would be I don't see any reason why the treatment effect size we would be any different than what we've already established in HELIOS-B.
Now they may have a tighter confidence interval or stronger p-value in that subgroup, but in terms of the effect size, I don't expect it to be materially different, and I think so it would be consistent with what we saw. Your question is, I think, the most critical one, which is how is that going to impact the label and I would just point out that our label already shows gives -- provides data for both on and office stabilizer.
And it specifically points out that the treatment effects were consistent in both populations. And so we have a very broad label. So I don't know how -- I don't foresee how the label would be materially different based on the statistical significance in that one subgroup. But that remains to be seen. But that's how I would map it out.
Next question comes from Danielle with Truist.
This is Alex on for Danielle. Just a question on AMVUTTRA access in community centers. I guess do you have a sense of how much of the market is not currently accessible due to the high cost of AMVUTTRA and potential hesitancy to stock the drug. Just curious if you have a sense of what proportion of new diagnosis are coming out of the community centers versus what proportion of AMVUTTRA patients are actively being managed in the community settings.
Yes. I mean, let me just take that very quickly. As we highlighted, from a payer perspective, first and foremost, because I think you highlighted whether there's an access issue, we feel really well positioned from access standpoint again, the large majority of patients have first on access to AMVUTTRA and that's regardless of where those patients are. In terms of accessing the medication, as we highlighted, first of all, our experience is that it's very broad and balanced. And in terms of the community saving patients, we've been able to actually secure alternative site of care agreements where 90% of the patients already have AMVUTTRA injection within 10 miles their residences. And we are continuing to expand that network. But I think we reached actually that critical mass already within '25, and we obviously continue to work on that.
Well, I believe that was our last question. So I'd just like to thank everyone for joining us today. Clearly, 2025 was a remarkable year in which we delivered a blockbuster launch of AMVUTTRA in TTR cardiomyopathy. We made significant advancements across our pipeline and we achieve sustainable profitability. And as we begin this next chapter of our story, we look forward to executing on our 2026 goals and the broader 2030 strategy. to both accelerate innovation and scale impact. Thanks, everybody, who joined the call, and have a great day.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Q4 2025 Earnings Call
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — 44th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference
1. Question Answer
Good morning, everyone. My name is Jess Fye, biotech analyst at JPMorgan, and we're continuing the 44th Annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference this morning with Alnylam. Company had a lot of updates yesterday. I'm sure we'll talk about those.
We're going to start out with a presentation from the company's CEO, Yvonne Greenstreet, and then we're going to go into some Q&A. [Operator Instructions] But with that, let me pass it over to Yvonne.
Thank you, Jessica. Look, it's a real pleasure to be standing here as we launch this next exciting chapter in Alnylam's history. I'm Yvonne Greenstreet, the CEO of Alnylam, and I'm delighted to be joined on stage here -- maybe stand back a bit -- by my colleagues, Pushkal Garg, our Chief R&D Officer; Tolga Tanguler, our Chief Commercial Officer; and Jeff Poulton, our Chief Financial Officer. And of course, I'll be making forward-looking statements throughout my presentation.
Now as most of you know, Alnylam possesses a unique profile in the biotech industry. And what makes us so unique is that we have an established and sustainable innovation engine, coupled with commercial excellence. This has fueled our success to date, and we will continue to harness this to drive durable long-term growth. And it all begins with the leadership that we've established in RNAi with a proven organic product engine and a reproducible and modular process to developing our medicines that has resulted in outsized historical success .
We also have a high-yielding pipeline with over 25 programs in active clinical development. And in addition to success and leadership that we've demonstrated on the R&D side, there are now 6 Alnylam invented medicines on the market that are collectively generating multibillion-dollar annual revenue streams and treating hundreds and thousands of patients around the world through our global footprint. So these value-creating features give Alnylam a truly one-of-a-kind profile and frankly, one which is rarely seen across the biopharma landscape.
Since the company's founding in 2002, Alnylam has pioneered the RNAi and an important feature of our approach has been setting and not just meeting but exceeding pretty specific and ambitious long-term goals. Started back in 2011 when we set our Alnylam 5x15 goals, which to summarize, stated by the end of 2015, we will put 5 programs in clinical development. We delivered 7. We then followed that with our Alnylam 20x20 goals, where we said that by the end of 2020, we would have 3 approved RNAi therapeutics. We delivered 4.
Most recently, we've been working towards achieving our Alnylam P5x25 set of goals. And as we stand here having concluded 2025, I'm proud to say that our efforts have resulted in 6 approved products, and we brought RNAi therapeutics to about 0.5 million patients around the world who are on an Alnylam invented medicine. We also said that we'd expand our pipeline to over 20 clinical programs. We delivered over 25. Further, we said that over this period, we would achieve at least a 40% revenue CAGR, and we greatly exceeded that too at about 50%.
And finally, pending the formal announcement of our year-end results, which will happen in February, we are firmly on track to achieving non-GAAP profitability. Yes, and these strategic goals have guided us on our way towards achieving our vision of translating Nobel prize-winning science into a new class of medicines to transform human health. So let's double-click on some of the exciting highlights from 2025, which by all measures was a transformational year for Alnylam. And starting on the left, the key commercial and financial highlights include the landmark approval of AMVUTTRA for ATTR cardiomyopathy. And on a combined net product revenue basis, we generated nearly $3 billion, which represents a year-over-year growth of 81%.
On the pipeline and platform side, we initiated 3 Phase III studies. We expanded our clinical pipeline with 4 proprietary CTAs in addition to the 5 that were filed by our partners. And we developed and launched a best-in-class enzymatic ligation-based RNAi manufacturing platform, which we have termed siRELIS, and this will enable us to greatly expand our capacity and bring RNAi therapeutics to more patients around the world while reducing the cost of goods.
In our press release yesterday, we preannounced our net product revenues for the fourth quarter and full year 2025, delivering a breakout year with nearly $3 billion in combined net product revenues across our 4 wholly owned products. And of course, this was largely driven by the launch of AMVUTTRA in ATTR cardiomyopathy, which propelled our TTR franchise to achieve about $2.5 billion, doubling franchise revenue from the prior year and coming in more than $800 million above our original guidance.
So today, I couldn't be more excited to share our next ambitious set of 5-year goals for the company, Alnylam 2030 accelerating innovation and scaling impact. These goals rest on 3 strategic pillars. And I think you'll see these pillars are pretty consistent with what drove most of our performance in 2025. It starts with achieving global TTR leadership and building a durable TTR franchise. Specifically, we intend to lead the market in TTR revenue by 2030 and also cumulatively across the 5-year period.
We also plan to launch the best-in-class next-generation TTR silencer, nucresiran, first in polyneuropathy by the end of 2028 and then in cardiomyopathy by the end of 2030. The next pillar is growing through sustainable innovation. But most medicines today simply just slow the progression of disease. We want to do better than that and deliver therapies that prevent, halt or reverse disease. This includes delivering 2 or more new transformative medicines beyond TTR that have blockbuster potential. And if we include nucresiran, that makes 3 new transformative medicines.
We also aim to expand to 10 tissue types and build out a pipeline of over 40 clinical programs. In addition, we aim to invest about 30% of our revenues in non-GAAP R&D to accelerate organic internal innovation and selectively access external innovation. And the final pillar upon which our Alnylam 2030 goals rest is scaling with discipline and agility, where we plan to drive sustained profitable growth. And specifically, we aim to deliver 25% or greater total revenue CAGR through the end of 2030 and deliver an approximately 30% non-GAAP operating margin across the period.
Alnylam 2030 represents our strategy to become the leading science-driven, fully integrated global biopharmaceutical company and maximize the potential of RNAi therapeutics for patients. So let's dive a little deeper into the first pillar. Our aspiration is bold. It's to transform the experience for patients living with ATTR amyloidosis. And in the process, we're building global leadership and a flagship franchise for Alnylam. While diagnosis and treatment rates have improved, especially since the introduction of noninvasive diagnostics, most patients with ATTR cardiomyopathy remain untreated.
And so it's a large, rapidly growing and yet underserved category. And it's for this reason that we are driven to bring our RNAi therapeutic, AMVUTTRA to as many patients as we can as quickly as we can. We're therefore, incredibly encouraged by our early momentum. In just the first few quarters, AMVUTTRA's performance compared to the performance of some relative -- with some relevant specialty analogs suggests that we have the potential for a truly breakout launch. This speaks the cost of demand for new treatment options, the value of AMVUTTRA and our strong commercial execution as we continue to launch in ex U.S. markets, building global momentum, which will begin to manifest through 2026 and beyond.
We plan to share more details around AMVUTTRA launch dynamics in a TTR-focused webinar that we plan to host in March, but I'm going to give you a little preview. Impressively, within just a few quarters on the market, AMVUTTRA has already approached parity to tafamidis in share of new starts. But it's important to note that given imperfect data sources, which evolve over time, these numbers are estimates, but one thing is clear, we're challenging standards of care. And this -- I think it's really important to note that we are making great strides in establishing AMVUTTRA as a first-line treatment.
And it's the first and only approved treatment with an orthogonal mechanism of action, it's perhaps unsurprising that AMVUTTRA is the clear leader for the stabilizer progressor segment. This demand reflects health care professional and patient choice. It's also made possible by the broad access and patient affordability that we have been able to secure. Most payer coverage decisions are confirmed going to 2026 and a large majority of patients continue to have access to AMVUTTRA in first line, meaning no requirement to step through another treatment first.
And most patients pay $0 in out-of-pocket costs and 90% of patients can receive AMVUTTRA treatment within just 10 miles of their home, thanks to the broad network of health systems and alternate sites of care that administer AMVUTTRA. Bottom line, health care professionals and patients are choosing AMVUTTRA and access continues to remain strong. We'll continue to drive awareness and preference for AMVUTTRA on routes to our aspiration of global category leadership, but in addition to that, we're committed to reinvesting back into the category.
With so many patients still undiagnosed and untreated, we recognize our role in helping close those gaps. Our investments span evidence generation, education and awareness efforts, but also innovative collaborations to bend the curve on diagnosis rates, which include research collaborations, sponsorships, partnerships with medical societies and novel diagnostics programs. And we'll have more to share about these category growth driving initiatives at our upcoming TTR webinar in March and over the coming quarters.
And of course, we're also advancing nucresiran program. Nucresiran is our next-generation TTR silencer now in Phase III, and it has the potential to offer a best-in-class treatment experience for patients by providing rapid knockdown of TTR on the order of 95% with a biannual dosing regimen and to solidify our leadership for years to come. Assuming positive results from our TRITON Phase III studies and regulatory approvals, we expect to launch nucresiran first in polyneuropathy in 2028 and then in cardiomyopathy in 2030.
The next pillar is growing through sustainable innovation, where we aim to deliver therapies that not only slow disease but prevent halt or reverse course of disease. And this rests upon the truly unique innovation engine that has driven the sustainability. This is a modular process that we utilize to catalyze long-term growth. And of course, at the core of this engine is the Nobel Prize winning science of RNAi, and we're going to leverage our leadership and expertise here to continue to invest in the power of human genetics, where we now have access to more than 2 million lives through various biobanks to uncover new genetically validated targets to sustain our pipeline and leadership for the future.
To expand the delivery of RNAi therapeutics into 10 or more major tissues by 2030 and to enhance the fundamental attributes of siRNAs and advance our capabilities with continued platform requirements. As I said, Alnylam is unique. And here, we've a demonstrated track record of success. We believe that the seamless integrated approach enables us to do all of this with high quality and probability of success at scale. And this has helped us build out this robust and high-yielding pipeline, industry-leading pipeline, that you can see here across rare, specialty and prevalent indications and spanning multiple therapeutic areas.
I want to highlight a few of these programs, which represent the next wave of transformative medicines, each of them with multibillion-dollar potential. These include programs that span the cardiovascular metabolic space, neuroscience and hematology. Zilebesiran targets angiotensinogen with the aim of achieving continuous control of blood pressure. With just 2 doses a year, zilebesiran could address significant unmet need for over 60 million patients with uncontrolled hypertension who are at high cardiovascular risk.
We're also advancing assets for metabolic disease, which represents a substantial global unmet medical need. And we see a compelling opportunity to address significant gaps in treatment left by GLP-1s. ALN-4324 targets GRB14 with the potential to be a novel insulin sensitizer for patients with type 2 diabetes. And ALN-2232 is our first RNAi therapeutic directed towards an adipose target ACVR1C, with the potential to lead to durable and fat-specific weight loss.
Turning to neuroscience. Mivelsiran targets amyloid precursor protein for the potential treatment of cerebral amyloid angiopathy and Alzheimer's disease. Mivelsiran has the potential to prevent amyloid deposition, both in the vasculature of the brain to prevent the life-threatening clinical sequelae of cerebral amyloid angiopathy and in the parenchyma of the brain to impact the progression of Alzheimer's disease. ALN-HTT02 targets the Huntington gene to reduce the progression of Huntington's disease.
Our exon 1 targeting approach has the potential to lead to deep and widespread lowering of HTT in the brain. With over 100,000 symptomatic Huntington's patients globally, this also represents a multibillion-dollar market opportunity. We look forward to sharing initial Phase I data in the second half of this year. ALN-6400 targets plasminogen to address a wide range of bleeding disorders. There are over 3 million people in the U.S. alone estimated to be living with an inherited bleeding disorder.
The first indication we're pursuing is hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, affecting approximately 70,000 in the U.S. Our Phase II trial in HHD patients is already underway, and we also plan to start a Phase II in a second bleeding disorder later this year. Now since our founding in 2002, we pioneered the RNAi revolution, solving hepatic delivery, proving the platform. This has resulted in 6 approved RNAi therapeutics. We intend to build on this foundation as we drive towards our vision for 2030 and beyond.
We plan to accelerate innovation and build on our competitive advantage by delivering to 10 or more new tissue types and utilizing potential combinations and polygenic approaches. We'll also look to continue our leadership in platform enhancements while selectively pursuing complementary modalities through business developments. Now let me conclude with our 2026 guidance and goals. In our press release yesterday, we provided 2026 net product revenue guidance. Specifically, we're expecting total combined product sales between $4.9 billion and $5.3 billion, driven by our TTR franchise guidance of $4.4 billion to $4.7 billion or 83% growth at the midpoint.
And really, what this does is indicate our strong conviction in the opportunity and reflects robust growth and excellent commercial execution. Let me now turn to our 2026 pipeline goals, which will drive our next phase of growth. We've got an exciting year lined up in which we expect 4 clinical data readouts advancing 3 Phase III studies, initiating 3 Phase II studies and filing 3 to 4 new INDs. But of course, it's not just about this coming year. We're building Alnylam for the future. We believe we have a generational technology, which has the impact, the possibility of impacting potentially millions of patients.
And our Alnylam 2030 strategy positions us for continued long-term growth and becoming the leading high-science global biopharma company. And as we look out over the next 5 years, if we achieve our aspirational goals, this is what we believe the profile of the company could look like in 2030. We expect to deliver substantial impact for human health around the world across a diverse range of diseases, as I said, potentially helping millions of patients. By 2030, we aspire to be generating well over $10 billion in annual revenues, driven by multiple blockbuster products and enabled by a best-in-class commercial organization.
We plan to maintain our industry-leading pipeline by continuing to reinvest in programs with the potential to transform human health. We also expect to substantially increase our manufacturing capacity and lower our production costs to support our rapidly expanding pipeline and commercial portfolio. Moreover, we want to be a company recognized for our commitment to social responsibility. If we do all of this, we believe that we will build substantial value creation for shareholders.
This is our vision, and thank you for your continued support up to this point in our journey. We hope you share the excitement that we have for building a leading global biopharma company and transforming human health. And we truly believe that we're in the early innings of RNAi and the best is yet to come. Thank you.
Great. Thanks for the presentation. [Operator Instructions] We spent a lot of time kind of going through those 2030 goals. What gives you the confidence to kind of lay out sort of these ambitious targets today?
That's a really great question, Jess. Now as I said, we we have this history. We have a 15-year history of setting these long-term 5-year goals. And the reason why we do this is that it really helps rally the organization. It creates focus. It creates accountability. And as you've seen, we've got a track record here. We have met or exceeded every single set of 5-year goals that we've delivered and most recently, piece of it by '25.
And we've built our next set of 5-year goals based on what has been an incredible year in 2025, where we've seen real momentum across the business in R&D, in commercial, in manufacturing. And so we feel that we have in our hands the opportunity to really impact human health and are going to set ourselves these bold goals on that journey. And I think it's important to say that we've set the goals, but we also have plans to ensure that we're going to be able to deliver them.
And when you're kind of setting goals that far out, how much buffer do you bake into kind of long-term targets like that?
So I'm not sure that's the right way to think about it actually because what we're trying to do here is set goals that are ambitious, okay, but that we feel we have plans that will allow us to achieve those goals. So by definition, it's not about buffers. It's about understanding the underlying assumptions behind our business and then developing goals that provide us with the potential to really impact patients across a broad range of diseases and build a substantial business. But Jeff, you may want to talk a little bit more.
I mean the only thing I'd add to that is, I think the goals are probably almost more important for internal purposes than they are for external because of what Yvonne has touched on that the organization is very accountable. So when we establish something like this, the desire sort of to galvanize the organization to drive that performance is real. I mean that's why we've continued to do these 5 sets of goals. So that's how we think about it. It's really about driving performance.
And then turning to the 2026 guidance you provided, specifically on the TTR franchise. Can you just talk a little bit about the AMVUTTRA drivers like underlying that guidance and how they may be similar or different from last year?
Sure. Look, '25 has been an exceptional year for us. As we shared with you, if you look at the fundamentals of the market, we really set up an exceptional business where we're gaining preference in market share, underpinned by the very much untapped market demand and the growth that continues to go from a category perspective. So in light of that, we obviously would like to be able to continue to build that market preference.
And what you'll see is where we're actually going to be accelerating the growth opportunities as well. So we want to be able to increase more diagnosis rates as we are actually continue to differentiate the product that's already been well received, both by payers, physicians as well as actually from the patient's perspective. So we just need to continue to elevate that and as we are growing the category.
So with AMVUTTRA writing, it sounds like you're seeing both in the academic and community settings. What are you kind of learning about prescriber behavior or patient characteristics in the different channels? And how do you use that information to kind of maximize frontline use?
So when you look at the fundamentals of the business and why we think it's actually very strong is because it's balanced, durable and there's a depth to our business, both from academic centers as well as from the community centers, the business that we're driving is more or less the same in terms of the quality. And what's also really important for us is how the community physicians and academic centers are experiencing the prescription.
Are they getting easy access? Are there patients actually being able to access the medicines and getting their injection conveniently? What's been the experience both in the academic centers and the community centers once the product is actually being used. And when we look at that across the board, we see a very similar dynamic. And what's, I think, really important for us, and you've seen in the numbers is to drive first-line preference. And that has been going really well. We're being very competitive, and we need to continue, obviously, that journey. So just the bottom line is it's a balanced business, and we're really not seeing a one particular patient type that's preferring one or the other.
What's your latest thinking on what eventual tafamidis generics will mean for the AMVUTTRA business?
So we've heard from Pfizer that tafamidis is losing patent protection 2028 in the U.S. From an Alnylam perspective, this isn't really a big deal for us. We're already approaching parity to tafamidis, as I described in my presentation. And actually, the real potential impact of tafamidis going off patent is that it really unlocks the opportunity for combination use. And when we think about AMVUTTRA, we have all that we need in this regard. I mean, we have data from HELIOS-B, which shows benefits in combination with tafamidis. It's on our label. And so we think that the introduction of generic TAF will actually likely accelerate a little bit of combination use.
Within that 2026 TTR guidance, how should we think about the contribution from international cardiomyopathy sales? And maybe you can expand a little bit on your expectations for price outside the U.S. where you've kind of commented a little bit before?
Yes. No, that's a really great question. Jeff, do you want to take that?
Yes. I mean I'm happy to take the question. The expectation is as we launch in markets ex U.S., you're not going to have split indication pricing. Price will likely come down, which will have an impact on the existing polyneuropathy business. Over time, the volume growth in the cardiomyopathy parts of these markets will more than offset that. But in 2026, it likely means you're not going to see an acceleration of growth outside the U.S. relative to the growth that we saw in 2025.
What are you guys going to be watching for in the eplontersen CVOT data coming out this year?
Yes. And obviously, we're waiting for the data to be released. But Pushkal, why don't you take that one?
Yes. I mean, look, we'll obviously be watching. I think we want to see the efficacy. We also want to see the safety, right? This is an ASO in a large, older population. I think we want to understand what the safety profile looks like as well. As we kind of think about the readout, just, it's probably also -- as we kind of think about, okay, how does -- it's another silencer type of mechanism in the disease. We kind of look at what we've established with HELIOS-B, which is 85% knockdown, 30% plus reductions in all-cause mortality, comparable reductions in hospitalizations. We're seeing some evidence of disease reversal on cardiac MRI, and we're seeing benefits on extracardiac manifestations like GI, et cetera, with 4 times a year dosing.
So I think when we look at the profile that's going to emerge for eplontersen, I think I would -- my instinct is that it will be somewhat similar to that. I don't expect it to be materially different. That said, I think there's been a lot of discussion around, well, they've got a larger population of patients on combination and is that going to mean anything. And I think as Yvonne just alluded to, we already have established benefits in combination using HELIOS-B, which is now reflected in the label. So while they may have greater statistical precision around that estimate, I don't expect that, that's going to result in a materially different claim, for instance, because we already have that established HELIOS-B, as Yvonne mentioned.
Maybe just building on that, I think we're going to have a head start as well. And I think we've demonstrated in the PN market segment, but we've been able to maintain a leading market share compared to eplontersen in the polyneuropathy indication. So we feel we're well set up with the data that we have for HELIOS-B and looking forward to seeing the data come out of CARDIO-TTRansform, but as Pushkal said, we don't believe it's really going to change the game.
And what about for nucresiran? What are the most important differentiators from AMVUTTRA? And I guess, how do you think about the transition or maybe like coexistence of that product with AMVUTTRA?
Yes, nucresiran is a really important opportunity for the company. And that's why we're really expediting development and delivering the PN indication, hopefully, by 2028 and CM in 2030. But Pushkal, why don't you speak to the specific...
I can speak to the profile and then Tolga, you want to speak to the -- how we're going to bring it forward. I mean I think we're very excited about nucresiran. As Yvonne highlighted in her presentation, we can get about 95% knockdown with nucresiran, AMVUTTRA delivers about 85%. That's going to lead to more patients getting that deeper level of knockdown, which we think is a benefit both in polyneuropathy as well as in cardiomyopathy, less variability, so more patients getting there.
It's twice a year dosing. So we think it's going to offer greater patient convenience. And so at the end of the day, our hope is that this will really be now the new sort of standard of care for patients with this disease, where we need to hit them strongly with the best available therapy. Tolga, do you want to comment on this...
Yes. I mean the only thing I would add is our ambition for 2030 obviously includes nucresiran, which we're really excited about. It's the target -- the product profile is really exciting. In terms of how the switch is going to happen, it's probably too soon for us to really articulate that. We've obviously managed through ONPATTRO and AMVUTTRA, although they're not exactly the same. And again, we're really excited about nucresiran, and we hope to be able to -- once the product is in our hands, we're going to be able to provide a lot more clarity around how the category is going to be developed.
And just I think also important to note that this really gives us a durable franchise. So we are committed to patients with TTR amyloidosis. We're committed to continuing innovating for these patients. And it really gives us a sort of durable long-term growth franchise here.
Just one comment here on nucresiran and the importance of it financially. From a margin perspective, we've guided to 30% operating margins through 2030. Nucre, we're talking about CM launch 2030. That will really drive a margin enhancement post 2030, assuming that we've got a successful product launch.
Okay. So the nucre transition could be sort of like a tailwind for the 2035...
Very soon, very soon after 2030. I don't think we'll need to wait to get to 2035 for us to see the impact.
The royalties -- the average royalty that we'll be paying on that is going to be high 20s. So if you can obviously switch that business from AMVUTTRA to nucresiran where you won't have the royalty burden, I think it should substantially benefit our margins.
So I guess, put differently, the 2030, 30% operating margin does not really reflect much of a transition?
Correct.
No, you won't get that in this period. It's really beyond this period, right? Because the CM launch is really what would unlock that.
Another element of that long-term guidance. When you talk about expanding into 10 tissue types, what sort of -- what counts as an expansion into a new tissue? It looks like you've brought something into the clinic or you've got preclinical proof of concept? What sort of...
Yes. This is a really important part of our strategy because we believe that the expertise and experience that we've built up in working in the RNAi field for more than a couple of decades now really helps us come up with strategies for accessing additional tissues. And that's why we set the target at 10 each tissue that we unlock, think about it acts as a value multiplier for the business. But Pushkal, maybe you want to talk a little bit specifically about how we're thinking about the different tissues?
Yes, absolutely. I think -- look, I think it's important to note, RNAi is an evolutionary concerned process. It's in every cell of our body. It's in every tissue of our body. And so if we can deliver into a particular tissue like we did in the liver now that we've done in CNS with our colleagues at Regeneron, that opens up now a wealth of possibilities. And so in terms of new diseases to go after or new targets to pursue. And so we've identified and we'll be pursuing at least 10 tissues that we want to get into where we think that there is a preponderance of disease as well as a preponderance of genetically -- genetic targets that we can pursue to ameliorate that disease.
As Yvonne said, that then allows -- that's a value multiplying concept for us where we can go after in that tissue, but also start to think about multiplexing across tissues, right, to really address polygenic and more complex chronic diseases. In terms of what counts, we've talked about -- what we're really talking about is things that are either in the clinic or sort of IND-enabled at that point. That's really what we're looking for through NHP studies, et cetera, so that we have a strong confidence that they're going to work...
So for the ALN-HTT data coming up, can you talk about what would represent success in that update? What would be kind of especially exciting when you unveil those results?
Yes. I mean, I think ALN-HTT is an incredibly exciting program. I don't think I have to describe the harness nature of Huntington's disease, which has been described as ALS and Parkinson's and Alzheimer's altogether. It's a devastating disease. We've got a unique approach, which I think is now being really supported by the academic science, which is targeting this exon 1 fragment is felt to be necessary to have an effect on this disease. We've been going through Phase I studies.
So we'll be sharing some data later this year. I think -- look, there have been, unfortunately, for the patient community, real setbacks with past programs that have looked this disease where they've actually had some deleterious side effects. So first and foremost, we want to ensure that we get good deep knockdown as well as good safety.
And that's really what the primary focus is going to be. Obviously, over time, we'll be looking at other measures, biomarkers and clinical measures of efficacy. But the first and foremost is we want to make sure that we have a safely administered drug that really does what we're hoping to from a pharmacology perspective and allows for infrequent dosing, we anticipate probably twice a year.
And maybe turning to mivelsiran. What are the data for that product that you're kind of most excited about so far? And what should we look for in the next update?
Yes. I mean I think this kind of connects again to what I just talked about with Huntington's disease. What's really remarkable is that in the few years, we've now taken the C16 delivery platform, and we're able to now actually have these discussions about how we can affect these really horrendous diseases, which I think kind of only imagined just a few years ago, right? And so with mivelsiran now, that is -- targets amyloid precursor protein, and we're really bringing that forward for 2 different indications. One is a blue ocean opportunity, which is cerebral amyloid angiopathy, the second leading cause of hemorrhagic stroke. We've got that in the Phase II study, which is enrolling well. But that's really a potential blockbuster and really entirely blue ocean.
And then we'll be coming forward with our plans in Alzheimer's disease shortly in terms of how we're going to pursue that indication. So these are very exciting opportunities. Again, what's amazing is we want to share more data in terms of the levels of knockdown that we're achieving, the safety that we're seeing now with some patients on drug for over 2 years. And then again, we'll start to share some data over time in terms of biomarker imaging, et cetera, that gives us confidence in this approach.
With our last minute, what would you flag to investors as the next kind of most exciting upcoming pipeline data readouts look out for?
I think -- look, I think as Yvonne highlighted, we now have 25 programs in the clinic. We're putting 3 to 4 molecules in the clinic every year. So there's going to be really a steady sort of flow of data coming out of the pipeline. We've highlighted a few things that we're going to share about some Huntington's data that we've talked about, some data on plasminogen, some data on ACVR1C for overweight and obesity.
But I think there'll be more data as well over time. Understandably, we're keeping some things a little closer to the chest these days than we may have in the past. It's getting competitive out there, but you can see that we're incredibly excited about what we have in our hands and continue to build an amazing portfolio across a range of diseases.
Yes. And Jess, if we think about where we are as a business, we could not be more excited about what's ahead. Thinking about the growth trajectory with AMVUTTRA, we doubled TTR revenues this year. We set ourselves some bold guidance to be the market leaders by revenue by 2030, and all the business fundamentals are strong. So we're very excited about driving that through.
Pushkal has talked about this very rich pipeline with a number of really important and exciting multibillion-dollar opportunities that we're going to be prosecuting over the next few years. And so we really have a business that is humming and we're going to use this 2030, 5-year set of goals to really accelerate our innovation and scale our impact and hopefully have significant impact on human health and build, I think, what is already a remarkable business, and we're determined to become the leading science and biopharmaceutical company.
Great. Well, thank you.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — 44th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Jefferies London Healthcare Conference 2025
1. Question Answer
Hi, everyone. My name is Maurice Raycroft, and I'm one of the Biotech Analysts at Jefferies. It's with great pleasure that I'd like to welcome the Alnylam management team. We've got Yvonne Greenstreet, the CEO; and Tolga Tanguler, the Chief Commercial Officer. Thanks so much for joining us today. And maybe to start off, it's been an exciting launch for you guys in the cardiomyopathy space. Maybe for those who are new to the story, if you can give a brief intro to Alnylam and talk about the launch so far.
Yes. I delighted to and really pleased to be here at Jefferies. I think it's becoming kind of an incredibly important meeting on the calendar. So delighted to be here. So, Alnylam, the leading RNAi company based on Nobel Prize-winning science, and we have been able really to build an extraordinary company over the last couple of decades, with respect to bringing forward 6 marketed products in a fairly short clip and build a very exciting clinical pipeline of over 20 programs and then all underpinned by what we believe is a very productive innovation engine that's going to continue to deliver new medicines actually for decades to come. And as we think about the company going forward, there are really 3 areas that we are absolutely focused on.
The first is achieving TTR leadership. We'll talk about it more, but we've had a terrific start to the AMVUTTRA cardiomyopathy launch, and that really is just the beginning. We believe that we'll be able to achieve leadership with respect to TTR over the coming years by bringing forward a medicine AMVUTTRA that we believe has the potential to be standard of care and then following that up with the next-generation program, which is called Nucresiran, which really provides us durability for this TTR franchise out until the 2040. So really establishing a leadership position in TTR, point number one.
Point number two is the opportunity that we have to grow through innovation. Built off the pipeline that we currently have, which has, we believe, the potential for 3 or 4 blockbuster transformative medicines that we're moving forward as expeditiously as possible to patients and an outsized probability of success from our R&D engine.
And the third aspect that we've been focused on has been around our financial performance, growing revenues, but also building a pathway to becoming profitable as a company through really disciplined capital allocation, carefully prioritizing our pipeline and making sure that we're building a company that has all the foundations to continue to grow for decades to come.
Got it. That's a great intro. And 5 years ago, you set up the P5x25 goal and have achieved that as envisioned. What comes next for Alnylam over the next 5 years? And what are your top priorities?
I just want to say a few things about the P5x25 goals because setting goals has been an incredibly important part of Alnylam and who we are. Every 5 years, we really focus on what we believe that the company could achieve for the subsequent 5 years. And we've done this for 3 times now. And each time we've either met or exceeded the very audacious goals that we set for ourselves.
And the reason why we do this, it's really important is actually it aligns the whole company, it focuses the whole company. It gives us a very clear pathway to what we're trying to do together. And I think by going out there and committing that to investors, I think also just strengthens the commitment that we have to achieving these goals.
So pleased to say we really are on the cusp of delivering what we call the P5x25 goals, which refer to number of patients on RNAi therapeutics, the number of products that we have on the market, the size of our pipeline, our revenue performance and importantly, a commitment to achieving sustainable non-GAAP profitability within the period. And we really are literally on the cusp of being able to declare victory. So I couldn't be more excited about what we've been able to achieve together over the last 5 years.
And it's now time to start to think about what might be around the corner. So I'm not going to say too much on that at this point in time, but we will commit to being able to deliver an exciting set of objectives for the company that will serve the needs of patients across a range of diseases, but we will also commit to value creation for investors. So we're very excited about what's to come. And I just want to finish by saying, in my mind, that's actually one of the most exciting things about Alnylam.
Yes, we've had an incredible trajectory over the last couple of years, but we really are in the very early innings of what RNAi therapeutics can deliver to patients. And as I look forward to the future, really the best is yet to come.
Got it. It makes sense. And for those goals, we'll probably learn more at the beginning of next year. Is that fair to...
Yes, we will probably have something to declare, and I hope you'll stay tuned for that.
Understood. Okay. So let's dive into AMVUTTRA, in our ATTR cardiomyopathy. It's off to a great start. Are you providing any more granularity on how many patients are currently on therapy? And how sustainable is this U.S. ramp up?
So we're not really speaking to specific patient numbers at this point, but I will say the launch has gotten off to a terrific start. What we said as we were preparing for the launch that a very important first step was to unlock the opportunity for AMVUTTRA to be available in the 170 health care systems that account for about 80% of prescriptions for patients with TTR amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy. And in the first quarter of launch, that was Q2 this year, we actually more or less achieved that and achieve that more rapidly, we unlock that opportunity more rapidly than we had believed possible.
And essentially, that allowed us to raise guidance kind of at Q2 because essentially we brought forward the revenues for the subsequent part of the year. So that was a really good start to the launch. And in the last quarter, we are really pleased to have actually doubled patient volume demand. And I think that's a substantial achievement that we're very proud of, thanks to the very good work that Tolga and his team are doing. And we've been able to grow the business, therefore, not just expanding the number of health care systems that we work with, but actually deepening the opportunity for patients to be prescribed AMVUTTRA in these health care systems. And I think that speaks to a couple of things.
I think, one, it speaks to the strength of the profile that we have developed for AMVUTTRA with HELIOS B. I think it also speaks to the fact that we haven't really had any access barriers to patients receiving AMVUTTRA. Patient affordability is good with a large number of patients having 0 out-of-pocket costs. So we really have set up, I think, a tremendous foundation for the AMVUTTRA launch. And really, I think what we're seeing is just continued momentum with broad and balanced utilization prescriptions coming from both academic centers, community centers, physicians that have prescribed AMVUTTRA historically, but also physicians that are prescribing for the first time. So I think really good signals as we think about building this durable TTR business over the subsequent years.
Tolga, anything else you want to add?
No. I mean the only point -- really nicely covered. Look, I mean, if you take a quick step back, the fundamentals are all there, right? If you think about it, this is a devastating disease. It's very fast progressing. So doctors really want to do something about it. And if you lose the cardiac function, you never take it back. So there is a sense of urgency in treatment. And yet, it's still underdiagnosed. So when you look at the category growth, the category growth is really accelerating as soon as newcomers come into play.
And last but not least is exactly what you alluded to, it's execution. In execution, we looked at how we want to be able to make sure that the access is there. And remember, this is a category where we like to call, we had a running start. We've obviously had a good track record on Polyneuropathy. We understood the category, but we had to expand and we had to approach it differently. That's where the whole access to these centers was very important. And that's, I think, was one of the reasons why we've done so well in our first launch quarter. But in the second quarter, as Yvonne indicated, the what I see is a very healthy uptake. So this balanced and broad patient uptake suggests to us that this kind of growth is very sustainable.
Got it.
And obviously, this allowed us to increase guidance again after Q3, which we were pleased to be able to do. And I think, again, underscores the momentum that we believe we have around this launch.
Got it. Okay. All helpful. And for the types of patients you're getting on therapy, maybe talk about the naive patients that are going on drug versus second-line patient, progressors and how that could evolve over time?
No, look, I think what we're really pleased about actually and Tolga touched on this, is a broad and balanced utilization across all patient segments. I mean, our focus from the very beginning was to make sure that we're able to establish AMVUTTRA as a first-line therapy for patients because we believe as a progressive and devastating disease, it's really important to start to have -- physicians have the opportunity to start AMVUTTRA in patients as first line. And given the very strong data from HELIOS-B, we have a profile that we think is resonating physicians. And we're certainly earning a very healthy share of the first-line opportunity.
And we also have another source of growth, which is the second-line opportunity. So, patients that are progressing on stabilizers that need an alternative therapy. And I think it makes perfect sense to us that in that scenario, and it's about 50% of patients that progress despite treatment with available therapies that many physicians, most physicians are probably going to reach for AMVUTTRA as an orthogonal mechanism of action to provide benefits to those patients as second-line.
So really pleased with our position across both first-line and second-line. And our focus remains making sure that physicians understand the benefits. So what we find is that more physicians understand the details of HELIOS-B study, which is a very rich study, the more compelled they are to prescribe AMVUTTRA first-line. So we couldn't be more pleased with the mix of business that we're getting.
Got it. And for the types of patients, are you getting information from the real-world launch, I guess, on a regular basis, informing you about these frontline versus second-line and then also mixed patients as well.
Do you want to speak to that?
Yes. I mean Look, first of all, as Yvonne indicated, when I look at the first-line patients after a short 6-month period, we're already inching ahead as the second most preferred option. And as Yvonne indicated, given that our orthogonal mechanism of action, we're clearly the right address in terms of second line. We're really not even competing there. We're getting the lion's share. When you look at the type of patients we have, and that's also, again, very encouraging. You're getting some early patients. You're getting patients that are maybe diagnosed in the later stages of their disease. When I look at the community centers, we're getting a lot of those. There was a lot of debate whether those patients will actually have the sort of the Part B patients that are they going to be able to come in, outside of the centers of excellence. We're absolutely seeing that.
So that's why I think we keep referring back to broad and balance because that's how you want to be able to sustain the level of growth. We're not actually seeing a one specific type of patient or one specific type of doctor that are preferring our drug over others. We're seeing this nice rise of broad range of patients coming into treatment.
And one of the questions we get more is like are we seeing much in the way of combination use. And I think we're seeing a little combination use. But I think as we said over a year ago that probably the combination opportunity would not really truly open up until their generic stabilizers available just given the cost of administering 2 medicines at the same time. And we feel really well positioned for that in the future because with the HELIOS-B data, demonstrated additive efficacy on top of tafamidis. And so when tafamidis goes off patent, which we believe is going to be in the 2028 time frame, we do believe that the obvious kind of combination is going to be with a generic TAF and with AMVUTTRA. So we're well situated for that scenario as and when it arises.
Got it. you think that could get pulled forward a little bit, the combo use just with what you're seeing...
We're seeing a little modest, I'd say, modest combo use, modest combo use.
Got it. And maybe jumping ahead a little bit, but the AstraZeneca, Ionis study that's reading out second half of next year, what could potential impact of that study be if they show stat benefit on top of stabilizers?
I mean, look, that's a good study, and I'm glad there's more data that's going to be generated on this. As Yvonne alluded to, if you look at the HELIOS-B data, you have already have background, starting 40% in the baseline and over 50% in the -- at the end of the trial that already demonstrated that stabilizers were leaving efficacy on the table. And when we communicate this and discuss this data set with the physicians, they actually appreciate this and they understand that this is more or less of a class effect. Now I think what we see is given that their size and our HELIOS-B trial was never really powered to actually demonstrate a significance of p-value. So what we anticipate coming out of the eplontersen study is probably you're going to see a little more tighter results in terms of the confidence interval. But at the end of the day, magnitude effect, there's no reason why we should see any real differentiator. And that's actually what the KOL community also sees.
And if you look at sort of how we've been actually competing in our polyneuropathy One could argue that, look, I mean, we have maintained 70% of new patient share and the category continues to grow. So I think given that the diagnosis rates continue to grow, I think this is going to be a good addition in terms of the armamentarium for the physicians to have another option, but we believe we're going to be able to maintain our leadership, which obviously we've had 18 to 24 months head start in terms of CM data.
I think that head start is really important. I think there are also some aspects of differentiation, which we believe that patients -- physicians will understand over time in terms of kind of rapid the regimen, AMVUTTRA given quarterly, et cetera. So we think that we'll be able to maintain this momentum. And importantly, in a rapidly growing kind of category, where it's probably more about voices, more voices coming to the table to educate physicians in order that patients can be able to be diagnosed more quickly and more often.
And I think one of the things we're trying to also make sure we're establishing the differentiation is by generating a lot of real-world evidence. So you've seen at AHA, we've had some really exciting data that we generated that actually shows signals of reversal. We have shown a GI data, which we thought actually was helpful, but we saw incredible traction with the physicians, how excited they were because essentially it impacts quality of life. So a lot of this data that we're generating through outcomes is going to be really important as we continue to differentiate the product.
Got it. And you mentioned under diagnosis earlier in a lot of rare disease type situations, companies talk about underdiagnosis, but I think it's a major issue here that doctors are focused on trying to -- and I guess, where do you see some of the improvements in diagnosis rates going and some inflection points?
So I think it's a really important question because we know that the sooner patients are diagnosed and they get treated, the better outcomes they have. So clearly, it's very important for patients that diagnosis rates continue to increase. I mean, as we think about this market, what we've said historically is that there are probably about 300,000 patients around the world with TTR with cardiomyopathy, probably about 150,000 in the U.S., but only 20% of those patients are diagnosed. We do see real opportunity though for continued acceleration of diagnosis, given it's become so much easier for physicians to diagnose this disease with the ready availability of scintigraphy at low cost.
We see diagnosis just continue to grow over time. So I think this is a market that we don't think is a flash in the pan that's going to grow for kind of 1 or 2 years and then peter out. We really see this as an opportunity to be able to continue to educate physicians, get more and more patients diagnosed and more and more patients treated. So this is a market that's going to grow for years to come. That's why actually our second-generation opportunity is so important. Maybe we'll come back to that later.
Yes. Yes. We will -- maybe just one other question just about the academic centers being familiar with the buy-and-bill strategy and community centers, maybe less so. Maybe just talk about the rollout there and...
Yes. No. I mean, I think, again, this is one of the sort of exciting insights that we were able to capture, especially in the second quarter of the launch. We're actually getting great traction in community centers. It's -- more than half our business is coming from those community centers because they are well equipped, frankly, to be able to do buy-and-bill. And they are seeing -- even their satellite centers of these academic centers are embracing this. So we really have not seen any challenges.
Now in those centers that they may not have the buy-and-bill capability, we actually establish what we call these alternative side of care. Essentially, these are infusion centers across the United States. We've had contracted over 2,000 of them, which essentially puts about 90% of our patient population within 10 miles of distance so that they can have access to. And we've actually gained great success through that.
Got it. Okay. And also briefly, I just wanted to ask on EU reimbursement. I'm wondering just what the status update is there on pricing, even though you've already got established network for polyneuropathy.
Yes. I mean, look, we've established ourselves quite well in Europe with -- we were -- just to remind everyone, we were -- we have been competing with tafamidis in polyneuropathy, and we had upwards of 90% market share in that particular indication. Obviously, with the new indication, it opens up a new round of negotiations -- and Germany is a soft launch where we're still negotiating our final pricing, and we would see the uptake after that negotiations are concluded. Now in Japan, we actually have already concluded that negotiation. And when I look at the -- some of the analogs, it's actually one of the best launches in the Japan market in this type of category where you see a rare specialty category. So uptake is already happening. And the rest of Europe and Germany, you would see more of a mid- to late '26 story, and we'll obviously update that accordingly.
Do you see what the price is in Japan?
No. But obviously, we've been able to -- look, a lot of considerations taken into account, including the larger volume of CM, that's going to -- this whole volume price dynamic, we have to watch out for that. So you're probably not going to see a direct impact of the ex U.S. markets contribution to our markets rapidly, but we actually don't anticipate a significant slowdown because we think we can manage the volume accordingly, when we are managing the price.
Got it. Okay. And let's talk about Nucresiran.
That's really exciting.
Next-gen drug. You're in 2 Phase III studies. Maybe provide a status update on that.
I mean we couldn't be more excited about the opportunity that Nucresiran is going to provide to patients. Think about a medicine like AMVUTTRA, which has got a terrific profile. You get TTR knockdown of around about 85%. With Nucresiran, we're looking at kind of upwards of 95%. And we feel that increased knockdown actually has benefits to patients that will probably play through into improved outcomes for patients. We've seen that in our polyneuropathy studies. We've seen that in other amyloidotic conditions.
So the hypothesis here is that with this better knockdown, okay, we're going to achieve better outcomes, and it's going to be in a regimen that's not 4 times a year, but it's twice a year. And it's also going to be free of the royalties due to Sanofi Genzyme. So we think there's a lot of reasons to be excited for Nucresiran from a patient perspective, but also from a corporate profile perspective over time. We're delighted that we've kicked those studies off. So we've got 2 studies, one is called TRITON cardiomyopathy. That's an outcome study because we really believe that if we're going to bring the next generation of opportunity to patients that we need to deliver outcomes, that obviously takes a little bit of time. It's an event-driven study, in about 11,000 patients. So it's a large -- sorry, 1,200 sorry. So it's a large study.
It's about twice the size of HELIOS-B, but we'll be able to come to market with a compelling profile. We're thinking roughly in the 2030 time frame. Enrollment is going very well because obviously, we have a really strong track record in executing on TTR studies. So that's TRITON-CM. And then we've also imminently kicking off TRITON-PN, which is our polyneuropathy study, and that's got a creative study design, really borrowing from the learnings of study that we earlier did with HELIOS-A and this is a fast-to-market strategy where we're looking at a much smaller study and being able to bring this to patients in the 2028 time frame. So both those 2 studies, we're really excited about them and moving forward as we can.
Yes. Okay. And we haven't talked a lot about the rest of your pipeline, which you've got a lot going on there. Maybe a couple of quick questions for Huntington's disease. There's a lot of interest there. Maybe just provide a status update on what time lines could look like.
Yes. So if I think about our kind of clinical pipeline, I mean, just to say that we've got what we believe are a number of blockbuster opportunities that will bring transformative medicines to patients. We've got Zilebesiran for hypertension. We've got a raft of CNS programs, Mivelsiran for cerebral amyloid angiopathy and Alzheimer's and then a very interesting program that if you have time, it's worth taking a look at, which is ALN-6400, which we are positioning as a universal hemostatic agent with really strong genetics behind it and could actually be a pipeline and a product, if you like, if we think about the numbers of bleeding disorders that we could go after.
But really to come back to Huntington's, we couldn't be more excited because this is a devastating condition. It's -- the unmet needs probably surpass kind of many other diseases that we can imagine. And we have in our hands what we believe is a program that could really impact the course of -- for these patients. It's got a mechanism that knocks down the full-length Huntington protein, but also the exon 1 fragment. We think that's differentiating. We've been able to deliver deep and broad distribution in the brain.
And importantly, the safety and tolerability is encouraging thus far with what we've seen with our C16 platform. And it's likely to be administered just a couple of times a year intrathecally. So we kicked off the Phase I study, and we're really looking forward to be able to bring that forward as quickly as we can.
Got it. We're excited to see data from that. So we're out of time. Maybe in closing, if you -- we're going to get your goals probably beginning of next year, our guess, but maybe highlight the key catalysts ahead investors should be focused on.
Yes, we've talked about Huntington's. I think that's something that you should actually really be focused on watching the program, the progress there. We'll be updating data from our Alzheimer study in due course. But really, I mean, the message that I want to leave this audience with is that we have rapidly growing AMVUTTRA revenues, which requires us with the opportunity to continue to invest in this very rich and high-yielding clinical pipeline as well as continue to move forward INDs on an ongoing basis as we access all the major tissues in terms of delivery of our siRNA. So a really exciting kind of year ahead, and you'll hear more about it as we get into '26.
Sounds good. Thanks, Yvonne. Thanks, Tolga. Thank you for joining us.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — UBS Global Healthcare Conference 2025
1. Question Answer
All right. Good day, everybody. My name is Ash Verma, I cover SMID-cap biotech and spec pharma here at UBS, and welcome to UBS Healthcare Conference. And next company, really excited to present Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. And I have Jeff Poulton, who is the CFO; and John Vest, who is the Senior Vice President of Clinical Research. Thank you, guys, for joining us.
Nice to be here.
Yes. So a lot of excitement around the story. It's been one of the best performers on XBI in the last 2 or 3 years. Maybe if you can just give me a little bit of a sense on key highlights coming out of third quarter earnings, and then we can get into more.
Yes, there's obviously still a lot of focus right now on the cardiomyopathy launch in the U.S. We got approval right at the end of the first quarter. So we've now got 2 quarters under our belt. In Q2, we did $150 million in CM revenue in the second quarter, raised guidance on our second quarter earnings call and then doubled that in Q3. So we think we did $300 million in CM revenue in the third quarter and also upgraded the guidance a second time for the full year, driven by the TTR business. So we raised guidance at the midpoint by $275 million. And so really pleased with the early momentum that we're generating in that business. And I know you're going to have other questions about that. But that's been the focus, I think, for the company this year in terms of what investors have really focused their questions on.
Yes. Got it. Okay. So just maybe like big picture, I mean, you have been providing these 5-year goals, right? So in 2025, if you can like give us an update on where we are.
Yes. It's -- this is something that I think that's unique for Alnylam, and this has gone on for 15 years now. So the current set of 5-year goals that ends at the end of this year is the third iteration. And it's really been something that company has done to put bold goals out into the public marketplace that then really focus the organization to really drive performance and be very accountable for the goals that we put out. When the company has done this again, 3 times now, we've achieved the goals that we've set out every time. So that's kind of how we think about this when we put these goals out.
The P5x25 set of goals was really about establishing Alnylam over this period as a leading biotech company. And I think based on where we are now almost at the end of '25, we've achieved that. There were 5 goals: patients, 500,000 patients on an RNAi therapeutic; products, 6 commercial products that have come out of our research laboratories in the market; pipeline, 20 clinical programs. And then 2 financial goals, one around top line growth across the period. The goal was for a 40% CAGR across that 5-year period. Based on the guidance that we've given from -- for this year, we'll well exceed that goal. And then the last one was around profitability that we had guided to get to non-GAAP profitability within that 5-year window. And based on the guidance we've given this year, we're going to achieve that as well. So I think we feel very good about the performance against those 5-year goals.
Next question is, will we do it again? And I do think that we will at JPMorgan roll out a new set of goals that we'll be looking out to 2030.
And like for 2030 goals, like is the focus going to be revenue, margin or EPS? Like how does that start?
Yes. I don't want to steal the Evan's thunder. That's obviously something that she'll do at JPM. But I think the sort of the general areas that those goals will focus on are not going to come as a surprise to people. I think one will likely focus around TTR leadership and how do we define that across the 5-year period. We'll look at the pipeline in terms of progressing the pipeline to generate confidence that there's growth beyond TTR. So how would we think about that across the next 5 years? And then lastly, what you're asking about is how will the financial profile of the company evolve over that time period, likely both sort of top line as well as what would the margin profile look like? Those would all likely be things that we'll be talking about at JPMorgan.
Got it. Got it. Yes. I know you mentioned that like you always think about kind of putting ambitious goals out there, right? And 2030 consensus for the Street, actually, like I was just looking at it before getting on here, it's pretty decent place to begin with already with the $10.5 billion in revenue and a pretty substantial margin profile. Like I mean, maybe if you can -- to the extent that you can comment on that and just like qualitatively, what are the elements that you have to achieve that?
I mean I think that's what the goals will focus on in terms of expectations across the period, right? Again, from a financial perspective, I think we'll be talking about top line expectations as well as how the margin profile will emerge as we've now just become profitable and kind of how profitable, how fast will the company become? I think that's what will want to guide people on.
Great. So yes, in terms of the dynamics for the launch then, so can you give us a sense of like what are the drivers behind this acceleration?
I think the thing that went better and faster than we expected, and this was really what we talked about for the second quarter call was around access. So this is a buy-and-bill drug. So there were a couple of things that we were really focused on as we got the approval and launched the drug on the provider side, so those that are actually purchasing the product, administering it and then getting reimbursed for it. There's about 170 health systems. So think of these are networks of hospitals where the vast majority of these CM patients are being treated. We had to get the drug on formulary at these health systems to enable those health systems to start ordering the drug. And we, generally speaking, completed almost a vast majority of that in Q2 and now completely done in Q3. That went faster than we had anticipated. We had been talking about the revenue trajectory as being a second half of the year story before we launched. So that was one very early unlock that enabled faster revenue trajectory.
And then the second component of access is around the payer side. And what you have to do is work with the payers to get policies in place to enable access to the drug. And we've done that very effectively as well. So for the most part, we've got first-line access to the drug. We're not seeing a lot of step edits where you have to go through another product to get access to AMVUTTRA. It's a heavy Medicare population. It's about 80% Medicare split evenly between fee-for-service and Medicare Advantage. And then a smaller part of the market is commercial. But from a payer standpoint, we're really pleased with that first-line access for the product because that's really how we're positioning the product as a first-line product. It's a progressive fatal disease. Physicians have choices to make in terms of what product do I put the patient on first. And given the nature of the disease, we're making the case to physicians that this should be the product that you reach for first. And again, from an access perspective, they have the ability to get the patients on it as a first-line choice.
All right. So there, like just like you said, like second quarter in the launch, like where is most of the focus coming from the patients? Like is it first line as you're seeing? Or is it -- what's the mix like?
Yes. I mean, right out of the gate in the second quarter, there was a larger portion of the initial kind of prescriptions or start forms that were coming through in the U.S. that were second line. So there probably was a little bit of waiting for the product to be approved where maybe patients weren't doing well on the existing therapies where there was a pretty quick sort of switch to AMVUTTRA. But over the course of the second quarter, that first-line versus second-line source of business really balanced out and then that continued through the third quarter. So we're really seeing growth and equal growth, I would say, in terms of sources of business from both first line and second line. And I do think that positions us uniquely among the 3 products that are in the market that we've got a good source of both first-line growth as well as second line growth. So that's what we really have seen now for 2 quarters in the U.S. Good balance.
Yes. I know just like early in the launch, there's a lot of different dynamics that can be at play, like one of the things about the combo use for like how much of that are you seeing?
Yes. I mean that's predominantly monotherapy, which is what we have expected just given the cost of putting 2 drugs like this together. There is some combo use, and there's interest in that. But from a payer standpoint, they're going to make that pretty restrictive, I think, until we get to a point where you get a generic product in the market, which right now, I think the expectation is the end of 2028 in the U.S. is when we'll likely see a tafamidis generic. That will likely unlock the opportunity for more combination therapy at that point. We're seeing some of it today, but it's primarily still monotherapy.
Got it. Okay. I think -- so you have the volume growth pretty significant lined ahead of you. And sometimes when these like new market formation, I think there is a tendency that investors are kind of worried about like is there a pricing degradation that can happen going from here? So effectively like what happened with GLP-1s in the last few years, right? So I'm trying to understand like on the TTR side, is that something that is possible? Like where does the gross to net like go in the long run?
Yes. I mean I think what we said when we launched where we -- on the approval call for the cardiomyopathy indication, we talked about leaving list price where it was in the U.S. So no change. But we did anticipate net price gradually coming down over time as we ramp volume for the business. And I think for 2025, what we talked about specifically was we expected a mid-single-digit year-over-year price decline for the TTR business. We're on -- I think we're on track to sort of deliver that.
I mean the volume opportunity is so significant in CM that is price is coming down gradually, which I do think will be the sort of the general direction that this will go. The volume opportunity obviously more than offsets what you're giving up in price. So that's the way we're thinking about it right now. We feel good about '26. I mean most of these payers have kind of got policies locked in for '26 and what I described for '25 in terms of broad first-line access, we anticipate that to be the case for '26 as well.
So it's kind of the continuation of the same trend that we are seeing in '25?
I think that's -- our expectation is gradual reduction in net price over time as the volume in our business continues to ramp up.
Right. And then the other aspect of this, just if you can talk about like the Part B versus Part D dynamic on how that shakes out different.
Look, we've -- I've talked already about the success that we've had on the payer side, right, both on the provider and the payer side. We've unlocked the provider side where we've got the drug on formulary. So these hospital networks have the ability to buy and build a product now. We've talked about on the payer side, the success that we've had in getting policies written that enable first-line access. One of the things I think that's unique that Alnylam does that's enabled some of that on the payer side are value-based agreements that we have in place across all of our products, but we've extended those for cardiomyopathy as we're launching in CM.
And essentially, what that does is that it gives the payers confidence that the patients are going to -- what they're paying for, they're going to get because if the patients stay on the drug, there's no rebate. If the patient starts on the drug and then drops off, discontinues, then rebates kick in. Payers really like that for a rare disease, high-priced product like this that what they're paying for, they're going to get the benefit of because they're worried about the downstream costs if these patients are not staying compliant to the drug. So we're given a commitment from a compliance perspective. And I think that's been part of the story that's enabled the access that we have.
Got it. And then just in terms of the competing dynamics so between the 3 products that you talked about, yes, like where is the -- is it ultimately like expanding the pie? Or where are you taking share?
Yes, I think the expectation is that over time, as you've got more voices in the market that you are going to see accelerating growth. It's probably a little early to say precisely that that's happening, but we do expect that, that will happen. Look, we're very focused on that first line positioning right now, and I think we're competing very effectively there. I think the second line business is going to come for us. But again, both of those right now are sources of growth for the franchise, which is the place that we want to be.
Great. Excellent. So with that, I'll switch over to you, John. Maybe just if you can talk about the next-gen science here and maybe give us an idea like where we are in the development cycle?
Yes, sure. So I mean, look, we're obviously absolutely thrilled with the profile of AMVUTTRA, but you're asking about nucresiran, which is our next generation, and we really think we can take things to the next level with that. Based on the results that we had in our Phase I study with nucresiran, we're highly confident that we'll be able to achieve upwards of 95% TTR reduction compared to we get about 85% with vutrisiran. And we're also anticipating very low interpatient variability, meaning that the vast majority of patients will reach that -- those high levels of knockdown of 90% plus. And this is with a twice annual dosing treatment regimen.
So we're really, really excited about that based on everything that we've seen. We know in the hereditary TTR polyneuropathy space, lower TTR reduction drives better outcomes. And this has also been something that's observed consistently in other forms of amyloidosis like AL amyloidosis, where the deeper you can knock down that pathogenic protein, the better the outcomes are. So it's certainly our hope not only that we'll achieve this profile, achieve more convenient dosing for patients, but we believe that will drive better outcomes. So we're really excited. We've already kicked off our TRITON-CM. So this is an outcome study in ATTR cardiomyopathy. And we are in parallel initiating a study in hereditary TRITON-PN. So as a study in hereditary polyneuropathy, and we're off to a great start. So we're very excited about this.
Yes. Maybe just on TRITON-CM. Yes, great to see that start. Like where are you on the enrollment progression? And like when can we expect the top line for that?
Yes. I can't comment in detail on enrollment, but we're pleased with where we are. We're leveraging our now vast experience in this space in operationalizing these studies around the world. We're capitalizing on that experience, and we're really pleased with where we are. But I can't comment too much on exactly where enrollment is at this point of time. We've guided that we would anticipate launching this in CM in the 2030 time frame and that the hereditary PN is an opportunity for early to market that we can bring that based on that study design. More streamlined approach that we can bring that to market a year or 2 earlier.
One, I mean, one of the benefits of this financially is that there's not a royalty burden on the third-generation product. And so if the product has the profile that John described in terms of better efficacy, better outcomes, combined with the more convenient dosing, we would think that this would be a business that we could switch fairly quickly as we launch into the market. And that from a gross margin and obviously, a bottom line perspective would really allow us to expand, we think, margins fairly quickly for the company. So this is an important one for us.
Yes. Like as these trials are progressing, is there any like competition that you see from the new product launch? Or like are you able to enroll patients in the study irrespective of the...
Yes. That's a fair question. Again, I would point to the experience we have here. We know how to run these studies. We know how to enroll them, and it's a big world. And certainly, we will take that into account in our footprint and where we are and how we roll out that study, but we're really comfortable.
We're targeting 1,200 patients in this study globally, right? We did -- we talked about patient numbers at Q2. We think we put 1,400 CM patients in the second quarter just in the U.S. on therapy. So it's -- the market is big, right? So I do think that we're going to be able to enroll the study without having much of an impact at all on the commercial opportunity that we're seeing.
Yes. Got it. And then just in terms of the design of these studies, if you can talk about that a little bit, like what effectively for CM and PN, what is the construct of the study? And what type of patients are you essentially looking for?
Yes. Let me start with the CM study. That's as Jeff said, that we're targeting about 1,200 patients. This will be placebo-controlled. Importantly, and these are patients with ATTR-CM, so both hereditary and wild type. There will be no restriction on stabilizers in the study. So we would certainly anticipate and we've designed the study with the anticipation that the large majority of the patients will be on background of stabilizers. But we're -- our anticipation here with the global footprint, we'll be able to thoroughly characterize the experience with that drug, both in combination with the stabilizer as well as the monotherapy experience.
It's going to be an event-driven outcome study. So we'll run until we've got the requisite number of events to be highly confident that we'll achieve our primary endpoint. And the way that the dynamic in that space has happened, we'd anticipate that these patients will -- as we saw with HELIOS-B, which was reflective of a contemporary population with disease that's more reflective of what's out there today, patients a little bit milder on lots of background therapy, we'll continue that trajectory in TRITON-CM so that we're able to characterize this in today's patients.
Got it. Okay. And then you also have some data that you reported for zilebesiran. So for that, this KARDIA-3 study, right, just overall, like I wanted to understand like what are the key highlights from that and how the physician feedback has been?
Yes. And I would encourage everybody -- but I'll certainly comment, but I would encourage everybody to go and it's on our website. You can see the cast from the ESC Congress and the KOLs who are luminaries in the hypertension space who presented, there really paint this picture well. We are really excited about this, and we believe that the prescribing physicians out there share this excitement for this to really redefine paradigm of how hypertension is treated. And I'd point to a couple of key things here.
Number one, this addresses the issues around adherence that we see with hypertension. A big, big problem in this space is that patients -- there are effective therapies out there, but patients don't take them with a high pill burden and having to do it every single day. Here, we have a profile where we'll be able with the twice annual subcutaneous injection to have tonic control of blood pressure, which is point two, that with currently available therapies, there's more variation both throughout the day, diurnal variation and over time as well, we're able here to have clamped control of blood pressure over time.
And then just what we see in the population that we'll be looking at in the ZENITH study, which is our outcome study, we've kicked off patients who are on a background of at least 2 antihypertensive medications, including a diuretic, we're seeing 8 to 10 millimeters of blood pressure reduction, which is certainly 5 millimeters or greater is very clearly associated with the benefits and outcomes that we're looking at. So collectively, we really think we have an opportunity here to not just impact the patients with this disease, but to completely redefine the way people think about treating it.
Got it. Maybe just like coming back to you, Jeff, I think for the next 5 years, there's 2 different dynamics at play, right? So hopefully, you get the next gen in the market by 2030, let's say, and then you also have the tafamidis IP going away. So in terms of like what you see the impact of that on AMVUTTRA from like a revenue standpoint and when do you start to sort of convert the patient? So you have a few different dynamics here. Like maybe if you can talk about like how do you think that will play on?
Look, I think we're confident in the durability of the TTR franchise that we've got to be able to sort of grow through that period when taf would go generic. I do think that at that point that the market will likely start to pivot more towards a combination market. I think we've got some really interesting data actually in the combination setting, which John can probably speak to from HELIOS-B that does show up in our label. And so I do think that would be supportive of using the product that way at the point in time where the payers will allow more of that. And John also described for the third-generation product that the design of that study is largely going to be on top of a stabilizer. And that will be a much larger study than HELIOS-B and likely will allow us to have a specific claim associated with that. So I think we're well positioned to grow through that period given the profile of the product that we've got that would support using it in combination with a stabilizer.
Great. Yes. A couple of other pipeline questions. And before that, I'll just ask for the audience in the room, if you have any questions, feel free to send them or through the QR code, and we can take them over. But just some of the early stage pipeline. So mivelsiran, so this is just kind of the status on the Alzheimer's and CAA, like where are we on that? And what's the next step?
Yes. So mivelsiran, which targets amyloid precursor protein, really exciting program, which is currently in the clinic for both Alzheimer's disease as well as CAA, cerebral amyloid angiopathy which is a leading cause of hemorrhagic stroke. And we released data from our Alzheimer's disease program earlier this summer, multi-dose data, very encouraged with what we're seeing both in terms of target engagement and the pharmacodynamic profile, where with twice annual -- every 6-month dosing, we're seeing profound and sustained impact on the target protein and very importantly, also encouraged with the safety profile of the drug. So that's -- we're moving on there. I don't know that we can comment on when we will release data from that next.
But then I think also just to highlight that we're also in the cerebral amyloid angiopathy, and this is a real blue ocean scenario. There's really nothing to offer these patients. And again, it's a devastating cause of hemorrhagic stroke, and we're really excited about that opportunity as well. We have what we think is a differentiated approach and profile here. APP is genetically validated as being important -- fundamental importance in both of these diseases. With our approach, we're able to knock down both intracellular and extracellular components of this protein, which is differentiated from, say, antibody approaches to treating Alzheimer's disease where you can only get at the extracellular protein. So we'll update as U.S. results become available, but really excited about the progress we're making here.
A tough area with a lot of room for innovation there. So exciting opportunity. And then I know like the HTT02 in Huntington disease, so that's another one. So yes, if you can talk about like what's the differentiation that you're trying to draw from that and where we are?
Yes. Again, as with the APP programs, this HTT is just -- there is hard to think of a disease with a more devastating consequence and greater unmet need than Huntington's. And we have what we believe, again, is a really differentiated approach. Our exon 1 targeting strategy, we're knocking down not only the full-length Huntington's protein, but also a shorter segment HTT1a variant of the protein. And it's -- we believe it's a hypothesis that targeting both of these is going to be fundamental to unlocking the full potential of the drug. We're in the clinic. And I guess I would -- I probably can't comment specifically on when we'll update. We have at some point next year at a scientific congress we'll update on the results of that Phase I study. .
I think in terms of differentiating, maybe just to point to a couple of other things, though. We are able to broadly penetrate all regions of the brain as opposed to some of the other -- I suppose the uniQure's frequently a question we get that's targeted to a very specific region of the brain. So we believe that we're going to be able to both widely target different areas of the brain and also based on what we've seen in clinic so far, optimistic that we'll be able to push knockdown of the drug. Some other competitor programs have run into platform toxicities as they've tried to get to deeper levels of their pharmacodynamic effect. So we think we can really push and test this therapeutic hypothesis with this compound. We're very optimistic.
Got it. Yes. I mean you do have a bunch of different early phase trials going on, right? Like I mean, outside of the ones that we talked about, like which ones do you think you're most excited about?
One thing I would highlight is ALN-6400. This is -- we're targeting plasminogen that we believe has the potential to be a universal hemostatic agent. So we talk about this as the potential for a pipeline and a product. We've disclosed that we'll be starting by the end of this year. We've disclosed our first or initial disease, HHT or hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, which, again, is a devastating disease with a very large unmet need. But based on our preclinical data, what we've seen in the clinic to date, we're optimistic that this concept could be applied across a wide range of bleeding disorders with the potential to achieve hemostasis without increasing risk of thrombosis, which is the -- that's sort of the holy grail in treatment of bleeding disorders. So that's one.
And then also just to speak about we had highlighted, I believe, at our last R&D Day, our ambition that we would be in every major tissue by the year 2030, and we're well on our way to first of 2 new tissues adipose with ACVR1 as well as our muscle programs. We haven't disclosed the targets or indications there, but we're well on our way in getting into the clinic in both of those new tissues within the next few months. So we're very excited about that. More to follow on the muscle program and other tissues over time.
Good stuff. Great. So any closing remarks, Jeff, from you?
I think you wrap it up. You've covered the sort of the key focus areas, and we look forward to laying out that kind of the 2030 equity story at JPMorgan.
Great. Excellent. Thank you guys for this. And yes, very excited for your future and looking forward to keeping in touch.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Q3 2025 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Alnylam Pharmaceuticals 3Q 2025 Earnings Conference Call.
[Operator Instructions]
Also note that this call is being recorded on Thursday, October 30, 2025. And now I would like to turn the conference over to management. Please go ahead.
I'm Christine Akinc, Chief Corporate Communications Officer at Alnylam. Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome the commercial Officer. Pushkal Garg, Chief Research and Development Officer; and Jeff Poulton, Chief Financial Officer. For those of you participating via conference call, the accompanying slides can be accessed by going to the Events section of the Investors page of our website, investors.alnylam.com/events. During today's call, as outlined on Slide 2, Yvonne will offer some introductory remarks and provide general context. To will provide an update on our global commercial progress. Pushkal will review pipeline updates and clinical progress, and Jeff will review our financials and guidance, followed by a summary of upcoming milestones before we open the call to your questions.
I would like to remind you that this call will contain remarks concerning Alnylam's future expectations, plans and prospects, which constitute forward-looking statements for the purpose of the safe harbor provision under the Private Securities Ligation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in our most recent periodic report on file with the SEC. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent our views only as of the date of this recording and should not be relied upon as representing our views of any subsequent date. We specifically disclaim any obligation to update such statements. With that, I'll turn the call over to Yvonne. Yvonne?
Thanks, Christine, and thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. Alnylam's Q3 results announced this morning demonstrate the exceptional progress we are making across all aspects of the business. As we continue to evolve into a top-tier bisect company, our focus remains on these 3 core pillars that we believe will drive sustainable growth and value creation for years to come. The first is TTR leadership. The AMVUTTRA launch delivered another strong quarter. It's still early, but we're very encouraged by the progress and dedicated to establishing long-term leadership in TTR.
Next is growth to innovation, focused on the potential multibillion-dollar opportunities within our pipeline, and an R&D engine positioned to deliver sustainable innovation and value creation for many years to come. The third element is strong financial performance, with robust top line growth and disciplined capital allocation, providing us with the opportunity to sustain profitability going forward. And of course, all of this is underpinned by a best-in-class team and our award-winning culture. The quarterly results announced this morning represent strong execution on each of these fronts. Our commercial performance was driven by TTR franchise revenues of $724 million or 135% year-over-year growth, with growth largely attributable to the AMVUTTRA CM launch in the U.S., where we achieved total TTR revenues of $543 million, representing 194% year-over-year growth. As Tolga will describe, the broad and balanced uptake in the second full quarter of launch drive an approximate doubling of TTR cardiomyopathy revenue compared to the prior quarter.
In addition to these commercial results, we continue to advance our leading pipeline of RNAi therapeutics. Two new Phase III trials are getting underway. The ZENITH Phase III cardiovascular outcomes trial of zilebesiran in hypertension has initiated and the TRITON PN study of icrisiran in hATTR-PN will be initiating shortly to complement the TRITON CM study that was initiated last quarter. We're also excited by earlier-stage pipeline advancements in bleeding and neurologic disorders. And with regard to financial performance, our third quarter results show continued growth with $851 million in total net product revenues, up 13% year-over-year. As a result, we've again increased our total net product revenue guidance for 2025 and from the range of $2.65 billion to $2.8 billion, to a revised range of $2.95 billion to $3.05 billion representing an increase of $275 million or 10% at the midpoint, underscoring our confidence in the AMVUTTRA TTR CM launch and our other commercial products for the remainder of the year. Now with our Alnylam piece of is by '25 era concluding soon.
We're thrilled by this incredible execution over the past 5 years, reflecting tremendous progress on these ambitious goals. This is indeed a strong foundation on which to build our next phase of significant growth. and we look forward to harnessing this momentum. With that, let me now turn the call over to Tolga for a review of our commercial performance. Tolga?
Thanks, Yvonne, and good morning, everyone. It is a pleasure to show how we're continuing to bring Alnylam's transformative therapies to patients around the world. Following an exceptional Q2 continued on [indiscernible] strong trajectory of growth and execution. We delivered $851 million in combined net product revenues representing 103% growth year-over-year and 27% growth versus the prior quarter. Our TTR franchise remains the primary growth engine. And we're also seeing continued momentum in our rare disease business.
Let me start there. More than 5 years after launch, our rare disease portfolio continues to deliver meaningful impact for patients and steady performance for our business. In Q3, the rare portfolio achieved $127 million in sales, up 14% versus Q3 2024, driven largely by ongoing patient demand. While the timing of orders in our partner markets created some short-term shifts, the overall trajectory remains strong. I'm proud of the focus and dedication of our rare disease and partner teams who continue to reach patients with these 2 transformative medicines globally, even as much of the organization focuses on the TTR growth opportunity. With that, let's review the TTR highlights. Q3 was another exceptional quarter for our TTR franchise, continuing the strong launch trajectory we saw in Q2.
Global TTR net revenues reached [ $72 million, ] up 33% versus the prior quarter and representing 135% growth year-over-year. This performance was primarily driven by an increase in U.S. patient demand with an increase in U.S. channel inventory more than offset by an increase in U.S. gross to net deductions. It is worth noting that the increase in gross to net deductions primarily impacted ONPATTRO, reducing U.S. reported Q-over-Q growth in our hATTR-PN business relative to our recent quarterly run rate. In the U.S., net sales for our TTR franchise grew 42% quarter-over-quarter and 194% versus Q3 2024, reflecting continued robust adoption following the AMVUTTRA-ATTRCM label expansion. Before we provide further color on the U.S. launch, let me quickly share the ex U.S. dynamics. Outside the U.S. revenues grew 13% versus the prior quarter and 46% year-over-year, underscoring continued global momentum. Further, international AMVUTTRA ATTR-CM launches are anticipated across 2026, following the completion of local pricing and reimbursement reviews.
Having said that, we're particularly pleased with the early progress in Japan where the CM launch is advancing well and tracking in line with leading launch analogs, a strong validation of AMVUTTRA's profile and first-line potential. In Germany, launch activities remain in the early stages as final reimbursement decisions continue, and we're encouraged by how the product differentiated profile is resonating at key treatment centers. More broadly, our international performance reflects the continued strength of our hATTR pull neuropathy legacy business, which remains robust despite new competition. Broader engagement in the category is expanding awareness and diagnosis, ultimately, benefiting patients and reinforcing Alnylam's leadership role in shaping the field. Building on our global presence, we're positioned to extend our momentum as AMVUTTRA ATTRCM launches expand worldwide. Now let's turn to the U.S. on AMVUTTRA ATTRCM launch which recently completed its second full quarter and continues to build momentum.
In Q3, our U.S. TTR franchise across both PN and CM indications, delivered $543 million in net product revenues representing an increase of approximately $160 million versus the prior quarter. If we assume steady and consistent growth of $50 million quarter-over-quarter in the pulmonaropathy-based business, then we estimate the CM indication represents approximately $300 million of net product revenues this quarter. or doubled from Q2. This reflects sustained launch momentum in AMVUTTRA ATTRCM with patient demand roughly doubling compared to Q2 and as awareness and physician adoption continue to grow. Our strength is built on 3 key pillars as part of our launch strategy. First, health system setup. It is not complete. Nearly all of our 170 priority health systems are now using AMVUTTRA, driving broad utilization, combined with our extensive treatment site network, roughly 90% of the U.S. patients can receive their AMVUTTRA treatment within 10 miles of [indiscernible] anywhere in the U.S. and meaningful milestone and accessibility.
So again, the health system setup is effectively complete. As such, we plan to no longer report on this launch enabler on future calls. Second, access remains strong. Payer coverage is broad and nearly all patients have access to AMVUTTRA as a first-line treatment option, meaning these patients have no step edits. Of similar importance most patients pay 0 out of pocket. Finally, with health system setup and access and affordability in place, we are focused on treatment choice and the profile of our AMVUTTRA continues to resonate. We're seeing broad and balanced adoption across new diagnosed patients and those progressing on stabilizers in both academic and community settings. Subscriber growth also remains robust. Having reviewed the 3 strategic pillars, we're executing and delivering on them. Patient demand roughly doubled quarter-over-quarter, reflecting strong, sustained momentum for the AMVUTTRA-ATTRCM and U.S. launch.
In summary, it is still early in the journey, but the results to date highlight the substantial long-term opportunity ahead and underscore our strong positioning for leadership in this expanding underserved TTR category. Looking ahead, the majority of ex U.S. launches are expected to begin in 2016 as pricing and reimbursement processes wrap up, extending our global reach and providing a measured contribution to launch momentum. We continue to invest in the TTR category, advancing science, enhancing patient experience, and building a durable foundation. Pushkal and the R&D organization are leading that chapter. With that, I'll hand it over to you. Pushkal?
Thank you, Tolga, and good morning, everyone. In support of AMVUTTRA's strong launch in ATTR-CM, we continue to share new data from the HELIOS-B study that further underscore the unique and compelling profile of this medicine with the aim of cementing AMVUTTRA as the treatment of choice for patients with ATTR cardiomyopathy. To that end, as shown on the left, at ESC, we presented new data from HELIOS PE that demonstrates the sustained benefits of vutrisiran through up to 48 months, which includes 12 months from the open-label extension. Specifically, as compared to placebo, which substantially reduced the risk of the composite of all-cause mortality or first cardiovascular event by 37% in the overall population and 42% in the monotherapy group.
More recently, at HFSA, as shown on the right, we shared important new data from the double-blind period demonstrating that vutrisiran treatment was associated with a lower rate of gastrointestinal adverse events versus placebo across the overall vutrisiran monotherapy and baseline tafamidis treatment groups with reductions of 37% to 49%. This observation is quite important, so that suggests vutrisiran may reduce GI symptoms, which as you can see from the placebo data, we're seen in approximately 40% of patients. These symptoms arise from the multisystemic nature of ATTR cardiomyopathy and are a major source of concern for patients with this disease. With these continued insights from HELIOS B, we're excited about the prospects for RNAi therapeutics to become the standard of care in TTR amyloidosis. Nucresiran, our next-generation silencer may offer even greater TTR knockdown with subcutaneous biannual dosing is now being evaluated in the TRITON Phase III program. We announced last quarter the initiation of the TRITON CM trial in cardiomyopathy patients. Today, I'm happy to share additional details about the TRITON PN trial in hereditary TTR polyneuropathy patients, which we'll be initiating shortly. This will be an open-label trial of Nucresiran in approximately 125 patients with hATTR-PN. Patients will be randomized 4 to 1 to receive either nucresiran dosed every 6 months, or to a reference arm of vutrisiran, dosed every 3 months. The primary endpoint is the change from baseline in the modified neuropathy impairment score or mNIS+7 at month 9 in the nucresirian par as compared to the placebo arm from the APOLLO Phase III trial of patisiran.
You might recall that this is essentially the same study design we utilized in our HELIOS-A pivotal study of vutrisiran in hATTR-PN, which led to its initial approval in that disease setting. We expect top line results from TRITON PN in 2028 look forward to sharing additional details as the trial gets underway. Now moving on to another exciting program. We made great progress this quarter with our zilebesiran program in hypertension. This program represents an amazing opportunity to address some of the major shortcomings of existing antihypertensive therapies. By targeting angiotensinogen upstream of the RAS cascade we believe we can help more patients get to goal, not only in terms of the quantity of blood pressure lowering but also the quality of blood pressure control, reducing blood pressure variability, improving adherence, and restoring nocturnal dipping. Ultimately, we believe continuous control of blood pressure will drive long-term improvements in cardiovascular outcomes. At ESC in August and shown on the right, we shared results from the CARDIO II Phase II study.
As you can see, treatment with zilebesiran resulted in clinically meaningful reductions in [indiscernible] is tolled blood pressure in patients with uncontrolled hypertension and high cardiovascular risk at the month 3 primary endpoint with continuous control sustained through month 6. Moreover, the treatment effect was further enhanced in a biologically based enriched subgroup of patients. With these results, Cardia I met the objective of informing the design, patient population and dose for the global Phase III cardiovascular outcomes trial, Zenith. Zenith is a cardiovascular outcomes trial that will enroll approximately 11,000 patients to evaluate zilebesiran at a dose of 300 milligrams given every 6 months compared to placebo in patients with uncontrolled hypertension with either established or at high risk for cardiovascular disease on 2 or more antihypertensives. The endpoint is a vent trip with a minimum follow-up of 2 years, and we expect to launch, assuming a successful study and regulatory approval around 2030.
I'm also excited to share an update today on our ALN 6400 development program. ALN-6400 targets plasminogen, and we believe it has the potential to be a universal hemostatic agent that can address significant unmet needs across a range of bleeding disorders effectively becoming a pipeline and a product. Plasminogen is a genetically validated target, high circulating levels are associated with increased bleeding. And conversely, individuals with loss of function variants have reduced rates of bleeding. Importantly, loss of function is not associated with the increased risk of thrombosis. As we believe that by lowering plasminogen with ALN-6400, we potentially can slow down the process of fibrinolysis thereby stabilizing clots and preventing bleeding without increasing the risk of thrombosis. Today, we're announcing the first indication we'll focus on with ALN-6400, hereditary hemorrhagic tolangictasia, HHT. HHT is the second most common inherited bleeding disorder, affecting individuals of all ages. 90% of HHT patients live with recurrent nose bleeds which can be severe and life-threatening and many experienced gastrointestinal and heavy menstrual bleeding as well.
And importantly, more than half of patients face iron deficiency anemia. So this is a burdensome condition and from one for which there are very limited treatment options. Importantly, we've already demonstrated initial proof of mechanism for this program in healthy volunteers in Phase I. On the right are the results from an ex vivo assay of fibrinolysis from our Phase I study and shows in the top panel without ALN-6400, clot formation represented by the dark blue area quickly dissipates. Whereas with ALN-6400, there is an antifibrinolytic effect as represented by the dark blue area, which extends for a much longer time, and this effect is maintained after 43 days. We've now moved ALN-6400 into a Phase II trial in HHT patients and look forward to providing updates as this program progresses. We also continue to advance new programs into clinical development building a pipeline that has the potential to drive sustainable growth and long-term value creation.
Today, for example, we announced the initiation of a Phase I trial of ALN-5288, which targets MAPT or TAO for Alzheimer's disease and potentially other rare [indiscernible] . The trial will evaluate the drug safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics in adult patients with Alzheimer's disease. With that, let me now turn it over to Jeff to review our financial results and upcoming milestones. Jeff?
Thanks, Pushkal, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be presenting a summary of Alnylam's Q3 2025 financial results and discussing our full year upgraded guidance. Let's begin with a summary of our P&L results for Q3 2025 compared with the same period in 2024. Total product revenues for the quarter were $851 million or 103% growth versus 2024, driven by 135% growth in our TTR franchise, primarily from the continued strong performance of the U.S. launch of AMVUTTRA and ATTR cardiomyopathy. Collaboration revenue for the quarter was $352 million, representing a $294 million increase when compared with last year. The increase was primarily due to revenue recognized under our collaboration and license agreement with Roche, including $300 million of milestone revenue associated with the dosing of the first patient in our ZENITH Phase III cardiovascular outcomes trial with [indiscernible] .
Royalty revenue for the quarter was $46 million representing a doubling compared with last year, driven by higher [indiscernible] sales as Novartis continues to successfully grow the product globally. Gross margin on product sales was 77% for the quarter, compared with 80% in the third quarter of 2024. The decrease in margin was primarily driven by increased royalties on AMVUTTRA as higher revenues in 2025 resulted in an increase in the royalty rate compared with last year. For the fourth quarter, our gross margin on product sales is expected to decrease as the applicable AMVUTTRA royalty rates increased further, driven by higher expected sales of AMVUTTRA. Our non-GAAP R&D expenses of $310 million increased 23% compared to last year, primarily driven by costs associated with the initiation of multiple Phase III clinical studies including the Zenith Phase III cardiovascular outcomes trial for zilebesiran and the TRITON CM Phase III study for ducrisiran.
Our non-GAAP SG&A expenses of $263 million increased 35% compared to last year, primarily driven by increased headcount and other investments in support of the AMVUTTRA-ATTR cardiomyopathy launch in the U.S. Our non-GAAP operating income for the quarter was $476 million, representing a $507 million increase compared with last year, driven primarily by strong top line results both in product sales, a well's revenue from collaborations as previously highlighted. We continue to be pleased with the progress we are making towards achieving our non-GAAP operating profitability guidance in 2025. We ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $2.7 billion compared with a similar amount at the end of 2024. Cash for the quarter was impacted by our refinancing in September. We raised more than $600 million via the issuance of new convertible notes, which was more than offset by the use of $1.1 billion of cash to repurchase a large portion of our convertible senior notes due in 2027.
Additionally, we also entered into a $500 million revolving credit facility, providing a new source of flexible liquidity if necessary. Now I'd like to turn to our financial guidance for 2025 and where we are increasing our net product revenue guidance driven by the strong U.S. launch performance of AMVUTTRA and ATTR cardiomyopathy with specific details as follows: we are increasing our net product revenue guidance from a range of $2.65 billion to $2.8 billion to a revised range of $2.95 billion to $3.05 billion representing a $275 million or 10% increase from the midpoint of the prior guidance to the midpoint of the updated guidance. The combined full year growth compared to 2024 is an 82% increase at the midpoint of the guidance range. On a franchise level, the guidance is broken down as follows: we are increasing our total TTR guidance range from $2.17 billion to $2.275 billion to a revised range of $2.475 billion to $2.525 billion, representing a 12% increase at the midpoint.
We are reiterating our guidance range for our total rare franchise of $475 million to $525 million. We are also narrowing the range of our non-GAAP operating expense guidance to $2.15 billion to $2.2 billion as we expect to end the year at the upper end of our original 2025 operating expense guidance. The remainder of our financial guidance, including collaboration and royalty revenue and non-GAAP operating income remains unchanged. Turning now from financials to our key remaining goals for 2025. As Pushkal mentioned earlier, the TRITON TN trial of nucresiran and hATTR-PN will initiate shortly. We also expect to initiate a Phase II trial of [indiscernible] in Alzheimer's disease. Let me now turn it back to Christine to coordinate our Q&A session. Christine?
Thank you, Jeff. Operator, we will now open the call for questions. To those dialed in, we would like to ask you to limit yourself to one question each and then get back in the queue if you have additional questions.
[Operator Instructions]
First, we will hear from Salveen Richter at Goldman Sachs.
2. Question Answer
Could you just speak with regard to AMVUTTRA how the momentum is going in the first line versus switches population and maybe talk about any combo use? And any clarity here on ex U.S. pricing would be helpful as well.
Yes. This is a great question. We're obviously really pleased with the continued momentum that we're seeing with respect to growth in our TTR business, particularly having doubled the patient demand volume for AMVUTTRA cardiomyopathy in the U.S. But Tolga, why don't you kind of take the question around.
Absolutely. Look, we're really pleased with another strong quarter. As we indicated, demand doubled in cardiomyopathy and utilization remains very broad and balanced. So let me double-click on that. What we're really seeing is an adoption across both academic and community settings and also from a wide range of prescribers and patient types. And essentially, that really demonstrates a very healthy uptick. Within that, what we also like to see is what we're seeing is we're getting in a place of very competitive setting in terms of first line. And our first-line share continues to grow quarter-over-quarter. And we're obviously maintaining a clear leadership in second line among those patients that are progressing or not responding to a stabilizer. So that breadth and balance gives us real confidence in the durability of [indiscernible] momentum.
And in terms of our ex U.S. pricing, we're still continuing to engage with a broad range of countries in terms of pricing and reimbursement. What we've so far seen is a really compelling pricing profile for in Japan. We're also launched in Germany, but we're actually in the early stages of pricing and reimbursement negotiations. And obviously, what we're really trying to make sure is the right value for our innovation is being recognized in Europe as well as we have in the U.S. And that remains to be seen throughout '26.
Yes. And there's a question on combination use. And I think, look, we're seeing some use in combination. But overall, the majority of the use is as a monotherapy. And as we've always said, the [indiscernible] goes generic, we anticipate that we'll see increasing combination use. Thanks for your question. Next question.
Will be from Paul Matas at Stifel.
This is Julian on for Paul. Just a quick question again on AMVUTTRA. I guess like what gives you confidence that you're going to continue to see an acceleration in patient adds next year and going into the end of this year? And also, it seems like there was somewhat of a contribution from switches from ONPATTRO in the U.S. this quarter versus last quarter. Again, any color on patient switches from stabilizers would really be helpful.
And then just really quick on [indiscernible] , can you just talk about what led to the decision to pursue that program and your confidence in the target. Does this say anything about your ALN-APP program in all sites as well?
Okay. So a couple of questions here, and we'll try and kind of unpack them Look, I think what Tolga shared in the prepared remarks were really the features of a very strong launch, as obviously, we're delighted by them. We do see kind of a lot more potential ahead of us. Tolga, do you want to...
Yes. Maybe I can take that on ONPATTRO contribution question right off the bat. Look, I think actually, you're probably misinterpreting that ONPATTRO declined from the prior quarter, and that really was driven by the ONPATTRO's favorability from last quarter's onetime Medicaid adjustment, which didn't repeat. So that really is the dynamic. We're actually seeing a pretty steady quarter-over-quarter maintenance of our ONPATTRO business, albeit very minimal. And also, our PM business remains very, very stable. So in terms of our ability to actually continue to robustly continue this momentum. Look, we're only 2 quarters into this launch. And we've already raised guidance twice.
I think that really speaks volume about the depth and the durability and our confidence in how we see these categories continue to grow. And as I mentioned, I think we do have a very balanced and broad uptick. And we certainly look forward to increasing our presence in first line, which is highly competitive as it is and maintain our leadership in those patients that are progressing on a stabilizer.
Thanks, Tolga. And I think the question with respect to [indiscernible] implications for APP. Pushkal, would you take that one?
Yes, absolutely. Look, we're very excited about bringing Matto the clinic. I think as a starting point, this just highlights what we think is the potential of RNA interference therapeutics to have really substantial effect in neurodegenerative diseases. So along with APP, we have Huntington's program, APT, our colleagues at Regeneron are advancing SOG. We've just been very excited about the -- our delivery -- our ability to deliver safely and with infrequent dosing.
[indiscernible] is a genetically validated target both in Alzheimer's disease and primary [indiscernible] , which are all neurodegenerative diseases where we get these neurofibrillary tangles that cause neurodegeneration and cognitive decline in patients. So very excited. We're building really a portfolio of therapeutics that we think hopefully can address some of the most intractable diseases in mankind. And I think this just speaks to the strength of the platform and hopefully being able to deliver a second and additional pillars in 2030 and beyond.
I think that's great. Thank you for asking a pipeline question. We really do believe that not only who we bought a very well developing revenue trajectory with respect to our TTR franchise, but we really do have a clinical pipeline that has a number of multibillion opportunities that we're prosecuting in fiscals, organizations, expeditious as began, clearly being able to help patients with severe neurodegenerative diseases would be an incredible achievement. So thank you, Pushkal. Next question.
[indiscernible] at Bank of America.
I wanted to get some color on payer dynamics as you get into the launch now Lari,like your third or fourth quarter in almost -- how are you getting feedback from payers or survey work seems to indicate that we're not seeing any pushback yet even as the drug has adopted to formulary. But as you're thinking about or currently negotiating 2026 status, can you share with us some of the feedback that you're getting from payers? Is there going to be any risk of payers preferring a stabilizer to a silencer or at least ordering which of the products that are currently available, they might prefer.
Yes. No, that's a great question. I mean, look, we're delighted that we really had no payer headwinds. And perhaps, Tolga, do you want to kind of speak to the outlook as we see it as we go into 2020.
Hi Tazeen, I think it's really good to hear that you guys feel like it's already been a year almost. It's actually only 2 quarters that we've had the launch -- and as Ivan indicated, that what we're seeing is really headwinds in terms of every actually payer piece, whether it's fee-for-service, Medicare Advantage or even in the commercial setting. I know there has been a lot of debate around whether we would be step edited or whether the burden on the patients in terms of co-pay would be high.
And what we're really pleased to see, as anticipated based on our experience in the PN, payers actually understand and they appreciate the value that this product brings. Clearly highly differentiated in a disease that's actually fatal and highly progressing. And both payers and physicians really appreciate that this disease needs to be treated early and effectively. And what we're seeing is not only within actually '26 but -- sorry, but '25 but also '26. Policies are being negotiated, and it's -- they're almost final. And we're seeing a very similar dynamic that we had anticipated early in the launch.
Thanks, Tolga. That's great.
Next is Maurice Raycroft at Jefferies.
Wondering if you can comment more on just the inventory demand number for third quarter and how to think about that for fourth quarter, along with gross to net and can you walk us through your expectations for fourth quarter revenues in the EU and how to think about the ramp up there?
Jeff, I think that's one for you.
Yes. I'll take the question on inventory and gross to net in the third quarter, very similar dynamics to what we saw in the second quarter. From an inventory standpoint, days on hand stayed pretty constant -- for the quarter, but there was growth in inventory in the channel, and that's because of the way the day on -- of inventory is calculated. It's based on demand. And given the ramping demand, that's what created additional inventory going into the channel for the quarter. that was more than offset in the quarter by an increase in gross to net. Tolga mentioned ONPATTRO. That was the biggest driver of the increase in gross to net between Q2 and Q3, where we see gross to net for the TTR franchise for the year continues to be mid-single-digit price decline on a net price basis on a year-over-year basis.
I think that Maury, maybe if you could repeat the other question about Europe and maybe -- today want to take that one. In terms of expectations for Q4, I think he was asking about. Is that right, Maury?
Yes, that's right. And just how to think about the ramp up in Europe as well.
Right. So I think the -- if I were to think in a greater scheme of things, the contribution of ex U.S. market is going to remain relatively modest, especially for fourth quarter, given that we only have really 2 markets that's going to be -- that's right now available. Germany and Japan. In Germany, we're continuing to actually have final pricing discussions. So that's obviously going to be rather limited. In Japan, we're very pleased with the momentum that we built. But again, in the greater scheme of things, the contribution is going to be very modest.
So ex U.S. market is going to be mainly 2026, mid- to late 26 story. What I really like seeing is how we're actually maintaining our PN business. If you look at year-over-year, the growth now is 46% in ex U.S. and TTR markets. That suggests that -- and this is actually in the presence of a new competitor now. So look, I mean, I think just like what we've done in the U.S., in the PN markets, we are competing very effectively capturing majority of the first-line patients. And we've actually established a great ecosystem and these key centers of excellence in Europe really recognize the value of our treatment and the product profile. So I would expect more to come on that in '26.
That's great, Phil. Look, I mean, I think as a company, we've built a really phenomenal R&D engine. And I think now we established a very robust commercial engine. So thanks to Tolga and his team with their achievements over the last quarter.
Next, we will hear from Jessica Fye at JPMorgan Chase.
Congrats on the quarter. I was curious if you could just elaborate on the approach you took to updating the TTR franchise guidance this time around in light of the fact that, as you said, we're still just 2 quarters into the cardiomyopathy launch?
Yes. I'm happy to take that, Jess. We updated the guidance. So obviously, what we're really doing here is predicting what we're going to see in the fourth quarter because that's the only time point we've got left in the year relative to the guidance that we've just issued. And if you look at the guidance, it's roughly estimating total TTR global revenue of $850 million to $900 million in the fourth quarter, which would reflect $125 million to $175 million of quarter-on-quarter growth on that range. The upper end of that range is very close to what we've delivered in both Q2 and Q3. And so I would say that's really how we've develop the guidance.
We're continuing to learn. As Tolga said, we're 2 quarters in. I think our understanding of the business and the ability to forecast it is improving as we get more data points. But we're comfortable with the range, and I would think about the midpoint is the most likely outcome for Q4.
Will be from Luca Issi at RBC.
Great. Thanks so much. I think congrats on another fantastic quarter. Maybe Tolga, CMS is obviously proposing to cut reimbursement for [indiscernible] I think, by 57% from $1,300 all the way down to $500. I guess what was your reaction to that news and maybe related, do you think that such efforts from CMS will remain insulated to just the diagnostic side of the equation? Or you think that CMS will optimal look also on the therapeutic side of the equation, given obviously the cost therapeutics are much higher than the diagnostics side? And then maybe super quickly, can you just maybe talk about subpoena from the U.S. Attorney General that you put in the press release?
Well, look, why don't I take the subpoena question really quickly. And look, clearly, we intend to work with the U.S. Attorney's office to produce the documents that have been requested by the subpoena and to understand, and address any potential concerns with respect to government price reporting. And of course, as you know, we don't generally comment on legal matters, but thank you for the question. And I'll hand it over to Tolga to take the remainder of your question.
Yes. So scans and how they are being currently reimbursed is obviously has been an important driver for the growth of this category. We actually anticipate more diagnosis and more scanning. We need to really fully understand how that reimbursement is actually going to play out. We haven't really seen any anxiety or concerns in the health systems that we're engaging with. So we're obviously, again, staying in tune and I'm sure we'll be able to manage that as the policy becomes more clear.
From Gena Wang at Barclays.
Also congrats on the great quarter. So maybe just want to confirm I heard correct that the price for AMVUTTRA will be declined at the mid-single digit year-over-year in the U.S.? And a related question is that once you launch your [indiscernible] , in Europe, how should we think about price change in Europe? Should we expect a huge dip or largely align with the U.S.?
And then second question is regarding the AMVUTTRA in ATTR cardiomyopathy in the U.S. Just wondering if you can share a little bit more color regarding the ratio between the first line versus second line. Are we talking about roughly 50-50 or second line is slightly higher?
So we got kind of a number of questions here about kind of price year-on-year in the U.S. price and color on the first line, second line split. I think all of those are for you Tolga. Why don't you go ahead.
I mean, look, Gena, as we had highlighted before, we would actually anticipate our net price to be gradually going down over time. And what you're seeing is perhaps some of those impacts and we'll continue to provide, obviously, what gross to net actually margins will look like over time. But I wouldn't expect a serious or significant shift in that. Now when it comes to Europe, obviously, those negotiations are continuing. And what we're making sure is that we are taking into account MFN and a number of other dynamics. And we'll obviously be able to provide a much more broader outlook in terms of how the volume and price is going to play out in the outer years.
As I said before, this is really going to be a mid- to late '26 story. And your other question is around remind me again, is ratio of first line and second line. Yes. I mean, look, I think what we really like to see so far, what we've been seeing is, we are increasingly getting more competitive in first line, second line in terms of stabilizer that obviously is an existing patient pool that has actually started very early in the launch, but what we like seeing is after first month into the launch, we start seeing a much more balanced and broad uptake between first and second line. And we certainly expect that to continue as we actually increase our first-line presence in the outer quarters.
Yes. And I'd just like to add how well the data from HELIOS-B are actually resonating with physicians. I mean, being -- cabin the first silence TTR with rapid knockdown of TTR resource. I think that's having an impact. I think the data that we continue to generate is important. I mean, Pushkal touched on this in terms of 37% relative risk reduction in all-cause mortality and first CV events. I think Pushkal also touched on the multisystem nature of the disease with a reduction in GI events. That really is, I think, I think, a compelling additional data point for physicians.
And of course, the quarterly regimen, I think, also resonates well where physicians can be sure that patients are actually going to receive their drug given the quarterly subcutaneous administration. So all in all, I think we feel really well positioned in this market. Both for a growing position in first line as Tolga said, we're highly competitive here and obviously, the leading choice for patients who continue to progress on stabilizes. So we feel we've built some really good foundations here. Thank you for the question. So I think we're on to our -- just 2 more questions.
Please go ahead, Ritu Baral at TD Colin.
Just back to Europe, Tolga. Can you talk about what degree of commercial investment is needed in Europe to expand beyond the PN indication. We're trying to figure out how to balance that against any potential lower cost? And then just a very quick follow-up. As we think about that first line dynamics, how much does center type impact first-line use, basically, if they're in commercial hospital systems versus patient characteristics?
No, that's helpful. Thank you, Ritu. So here are a few points around how you should be thinking about Europe. So we actually have quite an effective team that has been able to establish a market leadership versus tafamidis in the polyneuropathy organization. And the main reason why that organization is so effective is because this is a category, particularly in Europe, is really managed by centers of excellence, perhaps maybe with the exception of Germany. In most other centers, this is in countries. This is really managed by centers, albeit Italy or France, and some other major other European countries. We know in the U.K., for instance, there is one single center national media center that manages that. So it does require in test collaboration and obviously, a scientific engagement.
But in terms of the field activity, that's rather limited. And cardiomyopathy patients are actually mostly treated in these centers as well. So we wouldn't expect a significant expansion of our European businesses. Now when it comes to Japan, that market is a little more fragmented, so we do actually invest. We certainly play to win in that category, and we will obviously continue to invest what's necessary to make sure that the product profile is well understood and appreciated.
Thanks, Tolga. So one more question with our last question coming out.
Last question is from Cory Kasbah at Evercore.
This is Adi on for Cory. The tafamidis trends show a clear NRx jump from fourth quarter to first quarter in both 2024 and 2025. Should we model a similar jump up for AMVUTTRA, thinking that is it because of IRA Part D modifications in the past year or normal seasonality?
Yes. So maybe I'll take your question more from a perspective of category growth and what you should be expecting. Look, first and foremost, it's obviously still early days. And only one company has reported so far in terms of their quarter-over-quarter dynamic. But -- and we still like to see how Pfizer is going to report before we drove some firm conclusions about how that dynamic is working. But that said, everything that we're seeing, the category growth in ATTR-CM is accelerating.
And it's no surprise because we all know that this is an underdiagnosed and undertreated category, and there are a lot of patients are still waiting. And we've also seen this very much on [indiscernible] neuropathy with just one product coming in on top of us, we've seen the category growing, accelerating a lot faster. And the good news on polderopathy, we still remain actually the first-line market share leader. And within the expected category growth I would say we are exceptionally well positioned. As Yvonne and Pushkal mentioned, we are well differentiated in terms of our mechanism. We obviously have the robust outcomes supplied by HELIOS-B and importantly, we are continuing to invest in the category, especially on real-world evidence and data generation across both clinical and real-world setting. So our evidence base is strengthening. That really positions us to become a market leader in this growing category.
Great. Well, I think that brings our call to a close. And I'd just like to thank everybody who's joined us today. Look, our execution this quarter commercially in respect to our pipeline, I think it really demonstrates the new unique trajectory we have at Alnylam to become a top-tier biotech company and we look forward to sharing with you additional updates as we embark on realizing this vision. So thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending. And at this time, we do ask that you please disconnect your lines.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Q3 2025 Earnings Call
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Bernstein Insights: Healthcare Leaders and Disruptors - 2nd Annual Healthcare Forum
1. Question Answer
Good morning, everyone. My name is Will Pickering. I'm Bernstein's U.S. -- senior analyst for U.S. biotech. Very pleased to be kicking off our 2025 Healthcare Forum with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. We have Jeff Poulton here, CFO. Jeff, thanks so much for joining us.
Thanks for having us. Good to be here.
Well, maybe just to start off, would you like to share some opening thoughts on Alnylam for those who are a little bit less familiar?
Sure. We're a company that pioneered a new class of medicine called RNAi therapeutics. It's been a 20-plus-year journey for the company. There was a lot of work, probably for the first 10-plus years around delivery. But once the company figured out delivery, there's really been a steady cadence of progress.
And where we are today is six commercial products in the market that came out of Alnylam's labs, four of which we're commercializing. We're certainly going to spend some time talking about the launch into the cardiomyopathy part of the ATTR market. That's sort of the big focus right now for the company. But beyond the commercial progress that we've made, we've also got a terrific pipeline, about 20 medicines in the clinic today, all based on that same underlying technology. So it's a true platform company that we think has the ability long term to serially innovate using that platform, and that's the focus of the company from an R&D standpoint.
Financially, obviously, a lot of focus right now on top line growth. Again, we'll talk about the launch. But given the top line growth, we're on the cusp of getting to profitability right now, which is a goal that we set out about five years ago. So we're pleased I think, for Alnylam. That's how we're situated.
Excellent. Well, why don't we start with digging into TTR? I mean, you had an absolutely amazing quarter. What were some of the drivers of that performance?
Yes. We had obviously a very good start. So just to sort of level set everybody, we have been in the ATTR market for the last 5, 6 years, but we've been in a smaller part of the market. We've been in the hereditary polyneuropathy part of the market. We think the hereditary part of the market is about 50,000 patients based on prevalence and the polyneuropathy part of that market is probably 25,000 to 30,000.
What happened with the HELIOS-B results about a year ago was really the unlock of the cardiomyopathy part of the market, which is probably 10x larger than hereditary PN. And so we got the approval and the label expansion in the U.S. at the end of March. So Q2 was really the initial launch into the new opportunity.
And as you said, we had, I would say, a very good start, TTR revenue, globally and this is Onpattro and Amvuttra combined was $544 million which was 77% growth year-over-year, but sort of double clicking on the U.S., which is the only market that we were launched in the quarter, we reported $383 million of revenue, which was $170 million of growth from Q1.
And we don't have the ability to report PN and CM revenue separately, but we do have a good sort of trend history in PN. And we were growing probably pretty reliably $15 million to $20 million a quarter -- quarter-on-quarter in PN. So the U.S. growth in Q2 was $170 million. So clearly, a step change in terms of growth driven by the CM launch.
So we estimated of that $170 million, $20 million, PN, $150 million CM, and we think we had about 1,400 patients on therapy for CM by the end of the quarter. Some of the other things that we looked at and talked about on the earnings call, probably the thing that drove the faster progress than we had expected was the provider setup. This is a buy-and-bill drug. So in addition to getting payer coverage, you've got to get the providers that are doing the bind in the billing. You got to get them set up to be able to do that.
Most of them that do the buying and billing are affiliated with what we call health systems. There's about 170 health systems, which are networks of hospitals. In the U.S., where the majority of these patients that have cardiomyopathy get treated. And I would say we got through almost all of that and getting the drug on formulary at those health systems. That was really the focus. We had originally expected that, that would take probably 6 to 9 months to complete that, which is why we had guided to this really being the second half of the year story in terms of revenue.
So we got almost all of that done. So we really unlocked that completely in the second quarter. So that was really the pull forward of the revenue. We also made good progress, I think, with the payers. I think we'll talk about that later in terms of first-line versus second-line coverage. We also talked about the sources of demand, right? This is sort of an interesting market. There's a second line opportunity for patients that are on the sort of existing standard of care that are progressing and then there's a first-line opportunity in terms of new patients presenting being treated for the first time.
We saw a pretty good balance between first and second line in the quarter. And I think we also saw a good balance in terms of where those patients were treated, some in the academic centers and some of them out in the community.
So really good start, I would say, very encouraging, I think, for the company.
And I'm sure a ton of work went into preparing for this launch. In terms of what went according to plan versus some positive surprises, you already called out the formulary, anything else you call out as surprises?
Yes. Just again, why do we think the unlock on the provider side happened faster than we had anticipated, which was really the positive surprise. I mean I think it was ultimately two things. I think, the fact that we've been in this market for 5-plus years on the polyneuropathy part of the market, we have relationships with these health systems, the majority of them.
They understand the technology already. That certainly probably facilitated things a little bit. But I do want to complement the commercial organization at Alnylam. I think they really did a very good job. They understood that we needed to move as fast as we could to make the early experience that physicians were having with prescribing the product. We wanted that to go well because sometimes if you get out of the gate where that's a challenge, that can then make them hesitant to prescribe the product.
And so we couldn't get this stuff done until we had the approval and the label to take into these big formulary discussions, but the team did as much work as they could in advance to prepare for that. And so I think that they deserve credit for that.
In terms of the things that maybe went as we expected, but we didn't talk as much -- I didn't talk as much about what happened on the payer side. This is largely a Medicare market. So probably, in PN, we've had about 80% of the patients that are getting access to the drug being Medicare patients. And that's split between Medicare Advantage and fee-for-service roughly fairly evenly. And then the majority of the rest of the market is commercial.
In the fee-for-service part of the market, there's really, frankly, not much to do once you have the approval, the drug gets covered to label. There's no policy that has to get put in place there to enable access. So we probably got out of the gate fastest there in terms of patients that had fee-for-service.
Medicare Advantage and commercial plans, you have to work with the plans to get policies in place. You can get access to the drug before policies are in place, but it's a little more cumbersome. There's a little more work required from the physicians. So we made really good progress in getting those policies in place in Medicare Advantage and commercial. Medicare Advantage almost all the policies that were written in the second quarter enabled first-line access, which was critical for us. We expected that, but it was nice to see that pull through.
And then on the commercial side, majority also first-line access, some step edits were put in place, again, which we expected. I think you really need to look at the policies and the way they're written to understand how challenging that might mean to still get access. Most of that is really going to be at the physician's discretion to determine whether or not the patient is progressing. And if they are, there's going to be an ability to access there.
So payer side, I think, went as expected. And then we talked -- I talked about the demand. I think our expectation was that we were going to see demand both from a second line and a first-line perspective. We're really focused on the first line, but we expected that we would get both. And I think that's very positive. And I think among the three players in the market today, we're probably uniquely positioned to have really two sources driving growth both the first-line opportunities as well as the second line. So -- but it was nice to have that go well. We expected it, but nice to see.
Could you talk about the mix of first-line and how that evolved over the course of the quarter, and sort of what you're expecting in the back half of the year?
Yes. right out of the gate, it was mostly second line, which probably is indicative of -- there probably was some warehousing going on where patients and physicians were waiting to get access to an orthogonal mechanism of action. And so we did see that right out of the gate that most of the early demand was second line. Over the course of the quarter, however, the first-line demand was building.
And by the end of the quarter, it was pretty balanced in terms of where we were seeing that sources of growth coming from, and that's what we would expect on a go-forward basis as both will be drivers of growth. We're really focused on first line. Maybe I should talk about the -- a little bit about the segments and how large they are.
On a first line, this is a disease that's pretty significantly undertreated today. We think it's about 20% treated today. And in the last few quarters, I think our expectation is there's -- actually, it's over the course of the year, there's about 18,000 new patients, we think, that are presenting to get access to therapy.
With new entrants into the marketplace, I think we have an expectation that you might see an acceleration of that. It's a little early yet to call that, but that's what it's been historically with TAF in the market. The second line opportunity is, Pfizer is not reporting patient numbers, but you could probably back into it, making some assumptions around prices, probably 40,000 to 50,000 patients on therapy.
And there's different estimates on how many of those patients might be progressing. We think about half. So there's probably a second line opportunity of about 20,000 patients. Again, we're really focused on first line because long term, given that it's only about 20% treated, that's really where the growth is going to come long term in this segment. So we want to be positioned well and compete effectively there.
It's a progressive fatal disease. And so our expectation is that physicians and patients are going to want to go on the best product as early as they can. It's not the kind of disease where you want to try something, see how it goes and then maybe switch to the best product because what you lose it's difficult to get back with this disease.
So it's our job now, obviously, to take the data that we've got and make the case that we have the best product. I mean we've probably talked a lot about the HELIOS-B results. I would -- there's no head-to-head studies across the category, but I do think that the HELIOS-B study was the sort of highest bar in terms of what needed to be met to have a successful study.
The patients that went into that study were less advanced in the disease relative to the other studies that have been running this disease. And secondly, they were heavily treated with other therapies, including 40% of the patients in the study at baseline that were on tafamidis, an approved product for the disease.
And in spite of all of that, we delivered across every endpoint in the study, both from an outcome perspective, which was the primary endpoint, which is ultimately what I think patients and physicians most care about, but also on the quality of life and functional metrics.
So that's really what we have our commercial team focused on is educating and making the case that when you have a new patient, this is the product that you should reach for.
Could you talk about the competitive dynamics you're seeing with Attruby, and how that cuts differently across different either patient or payer segments?
Yes. I mean it's a -- this is a competitive category. We've only got, obviously, for us only one quarter so far. So there's probably not too many definitive conclusions we can draw yet. But I would say in the first line, I think, what we saw in the second quarter is the majority of the patients are probably still going on TAF, which I think at this point is expected, I mean they were the only product in the market for 5-plus years.
Then Bridge got on the market with their product towards the end of last year, and this was our first quarter. But there's an unmet need here. And I think we saw that also in the first-line setting is that physicians were very interested in trying these new products. I think, by and large, in the second quarter, probably the physicians that we're trying something new were roughly splitting between Bridge and our product and sort of starting to get some experience there.
And again, this is why we're really focused on first line and driving clarity on the data that we've got from HELIOS-B so that we can continue to drive a greater share there on a go-forward basis.
On a second line -- from a second-line perspective, we talked about the number of patients that might be progressing. I think now physicians really have a choice to make if the patients are not doing well on tafamidis. They can switch them to another stabilizer, which is in the same class as tafamidis, or they can switch to an orthogonal mechanism, the silencer, which is obviously our product.
And based on the way cardiologists like to do this, they're -- the vast majority are switching them to a new orthogonal mechanism. And so I do think that we're going to continue to do very well in the second-line setting.
Going into the launch, there was a lot of investor debate about the Part B versus Part D dynamics. Could you talk about what you're seeing now that the launch is underway?
Yes. I mean, maybe a couple of things. We talked about the payer progress already, really first line in Medicare Advantage and majority of first line in commercial. That's what we expected. We're not planting the victory flag on that. We're not done forever. These plans have the ability over time to review and make adjustments to their policies.
We did when we launched. We kept the price the same as what we had in PN, but we communicated that we anticipated that price would come down gradually over time. We said on the second quarter call that we did see an increase in gross to nets in the second quarter, and we expect '25 versus '24 mid-single-digit reduction in net price. So that should be the expectation in terms of direction of travel. We believe that will enable us to maintain the type of access that I talked about over time.
Maybe just to talk a little bit about the pricing decision and why we made the decision that we did probably two or three factors into that. I think, first of all, this is a rare, progressive and fatal disease. Sometimes people forget a little bit about the fact that's an orphan disease. And typically, with payers, with a rare and fatal disease, they're hesitant to get really involved and manage those types of categories aggressively.
So that was part of the calculus. Secondly, I think it's based on the data. I've already talked about the strength of the data. We've got the broadest label in this space. We're the only product that's got both hereditary PN as the full opportunity in cardiomyopathy. So the data, we think, sort of supports it. And then lastly, in terms of what's the impact of the way we price the drug on patients.
What we saw in polyneuropathy is what we're seeing already in cardiomyopathy, which is the majority of the patients are not paying anything. About 70% of the patients that have been on the product, first in polyneuropathy, had 0 out of pocket. And again, we're expecting the same thing in cardiomyopathy. So even though this is a high-cost drug, from a patient perspective, it's an affordable opportunity.
So those were the things, I think, that went into the decision to price it the way that we did. And again, thus far, so far so good, but this is clearly an area that we're going to need to continue to focus as time passes.
Turning to the guidance. You raised net product revenue guidance by $600 million at the midpoint, which is a very substantial increase. On the other hand, by my math, you could grow sequentially, maybe a little over $100 million for the next two quarters and still get the top end of that guide? Maybe talk about some of the puts and takes for how you expect growth to look in the back half?
Yes. Maybe just talk about the sort of the sequencing of the guidance that we gave. We actually guided at JPMorgan this year. And historically, we've given product sales guidance combined for TTR and sort of our rare products together. This year, we decided to break them apart. So we wanted to provide more visibility to our expectations on TTR. And again, we guided at JPMorgan, which was two or three months before we even had an approval on a label.
Obviously, we were confident based on the data we had and the progress that we were making with the FDA. But part of that was also wanting to get a little bit ahead of the sell side because it was clear that a lot of the sell-side hadn't spent a lot of time on their models yet and thinking about numbers for '25. So we wanted to help, frankly, sell side and manage expectations.
And we did believe this was going to be a second half of the year story in terms of the CM launch. So we talked about the strength of the Q2 numbers. If you look at where TTR was halfway through the year based on the Q2 results, we were a little over $900 million. The guidance that we gave back in January for the TTR franchise revenues this year was $1.6 billion to $1.725 billion. So clearly, we had to upgrade the guidance based on where we were at Q2.
And so we upgraded more than $550 million in TTR to $2.175 billion to $2.275 billion. That's more than 30% upgrade from the original guidance at the midpoint. It's based on one quarter of results. And so I would sort of point people to that in terms of expectations for the second half of the year. Just to frame a little bit more in terms of the growth of that, that implies for the franchise on a year-over-year basis.
If we hit the midpoint of that guidance, the TTR franchise in total, so PN plus CM, we'll grow about $1 billion in revenue compared to 2024. In 2024, when it was PN-only, the franchise grew $300 million, right? So you can see the accelerating effect of the TTR or the CM opportunity in just nine months in the U.S., right?
And we are going to start to launch in additional markets outside the U.S. We've just started in Japan and Germany, probably not significant contributors this year, that will be more of a '26 story. We'll start to unlock more markets. outside the U.S. next year as well. So there's a lot of long-term growth potential here.
But in terms of the guidance, I mean, again, I think that was based on one quarter, and I would point the market to that in terms of expectations for the second half.
Oh, US, how should we think about the timing of when those approvals and reimbursement starts contributing to revenue?
Yes. I mean, I just mentioned, I think it will be a fairly modest contribution from Japan and Germany this year, and then we'll start to unlock more of the markets in Western Europe next year. The one thing that will be different outside the U.S. from the U.S. is pricing and what that should mean in terms of the -- sort of the growth ramp in CM.
We've talked about in the U.S., we didn't make any change to the price when we launched in CM. And we have a single price for the franchise as a whole. So obviously, as you start to add new patients in the U.S. for CM, that's all additive to growth.
Outside the U.S., it's likely going to be a different story. I mean these are single-payer markets, so you're negotiating with the governments to establish price. Typically, the way price works is you're benchmarked against what's in the market for that disease. And so in this case, it's tafamidis. And so we'll get benchmarked against that. And I'm simplifying this a bit, but typically, they look at your clinical data compared to the clinical data of the product in the market.
And if you're better, you may get a premium to existing product. If it's determined it's very similar, it will be probably similar in price. And if it's not quite as good, you're going to have a discount. That will be lower typically than the price that we're at for PN. And so there will be an impact on the PN business in terms of the headwind as you lower that price and launch into CM.
Now the volume, as we've already talked about in terms of the size of the opportunity is so significant that the volume in CM is obviously going to more than make up for what you're losing in PN, but it will impact -- again, the initial uptake.
I mean, we -- again, in the U.S., we have talked about that sort of stair-step effect. We grew 80% in the U.S. between Q2 and Q1, right? We won't have that kind of growth stairstep in the international market. So they'll contribute, but it will just be sort of a little bit of a different sort of profile when that starts next year.
Could you talk about your expectations for the longer-term evolution of the TTR market and what that means for Alnylam. So for example, a couple of years, you may have another silencer on the market, in a few years, potentially TAF generics. What does all that mean for your franchise?
Yes. Maybe we'll take those sequentially. So there's three products in the market today, one silencer and two stabilizers. There's a -- you mentioned that there's another silencer that's in the clinic for cardiomyopathy. That's the Ionis, AstraZeneca product. They're already on the market in polyneuropathy. I think their study is expected to read out second half of next year. So maybe second half of '27, I think, is what they're guiding to in terms of when they would potentially be on the market. We expect that, that study will be positive, and they will come on to the market. Maybe talk about the experience that we've had in PN, where, in the U.S., we really had the PN market to ourselves for four or five years and really build and establish that market.
They -- the Astra-Ionis product, Wainua, got approved at the start of 2024. And if you look at what happened to our PN business over the course of 2024, there really was no change in the growth trajectory from the year prior. And I think they were probably happy with the progress that they made in the launch.
So what's fairly typical in these rare disease type opportunities is when there's multiple or new voices coming into the market driving disease education and awareness, the market starts to expand faster. And that's what happened last year as the market started to expand faster, as the leader in the category, we were probably getting 2/3 to maybe 70% of the new patients that were coming on to therapy, which is what allowed us to continue to grow at the same pace.
It didn't -- you didn't see a switch dynamic really between our product and their product. We're once a quarter subcu, they're monthly injection. So we didn't see a lot of switching between the two products. So fast forward to cardiomyopathy, in terms of the silencer part of the market, I guess we would expect that's a pretty good proxy for what we would expect when they come into the market.
Obviously, this is all pending data from the study and understanding what that looks like. The other dynamic that you're asking about is TAF generic, and I know there's sort of a big debate about timing of that. I think our view is consistent with what Pfizer has guided in terms of likely timing in the U.S. We think it's the end of 2028. We think what that means for now is that it's largely going to be a monotherapy market because payers are going to make it difficult to get two products for the same disease reimbursed at this point.
There is some combination therapy going on today, and there, frankly, is interest in that. I think cardiologists are frankly very comfortable combining the products. I think the data from HELIOS-B study wasn't designed to have a statistically significant result in that combination setting, but the trends were really pretty favorable. There's some really interesting data in there in that combination setting.
In every endpoint in the study, it favored the drug, the combination compared to TAF alone. And so there's some very positive trends. That's in the clinical trial section of the label. And so I think there's a desire to do combo. I think it will be more limited until TAF goes generic. And then once TAF goes generic, I do think you're going to see a lot more combination therapy.
For us, I think we're encouraged by that because I think that reflects the fact that we think this will be a very durable franchise that can grow through TAF going generic. I think again, it will be mono primarily until then, and then we think it will be probably more of a combo market.
And I know we're going to talk about nucrisiran a little bit, but we think the design of the necrisiran study will also position the franchise well for that post TAF generic period as well.
Well, that was where I was going to go next. So that's going to be one of the other really important developments in the market 5, 6 years from now. Maybe talk about what the product profile is that you're going to achieve, and why it's important for the business?
Yes. So this is our third-generation TTR product. First generation was ONPATTRO, which was an every 3-week IV, then Amvuttra, which is once-a-quarter subcu, both of those get to knockdown of about 85% on average. Nucrisiran is that sort of -- again, I would say we're continuing to improve the chemistry which is allowing us to dose it at higher rates, which is leading to better knockdown.
In the Phase I study, we saw knockdown quickly and getting to about 95% and sustained for out to six months. So the increased knockdown, we believe, could lead to better efficacy, 85% to 95%, typically more is better in this kind of disease, and then the duration of the dosing once every six months compared to once a quarter, I think certainly from a convenience standpoint would be preferred by patients.
And so that's the profile that we're going for. There's some other elements of this that are attractive from a financial standpoint. There's a pretty heavy royalty burden on Amvuttra that's payable to Sanofi. That's between 15% and 30%, and you get to those -- that upper tier fairly quickly.
There's no royalties that would be due to Sanofi on nucrisiran. So even if you just switch the existing business, the impact from an earnings and a cash perspective is pretty substantial. And we don't think this is just switching the existing business. I talked about the profile. We think it's something that will sustain growth longer term. And longer term here means IP that goes out into the early 2040s. We're looking at Amvuttra probably 2036 in terms of when you'd see generic entry there.
So it extends the life of the franchise as well. So there's a lot to be excited about here, I think, with this particular product and why we're very focused on it.
And you're just now getting the study underway. But one of the questions that I get is, well, they have trouble enrolling the study given Amvuttra is a very compelling products. So anything you could say about that?
Yes. I don't think so. I mean, I guess I don't think that we'll have problem enrolling it because this gives patients the opportunity frankly to get on combination therapy because there's going to be no limitation for patients to be on a background stabilizer to come into this study. And so I talked about the fact that right now, combination therapy is difficult from a payer perspective in the U.S.
So I think there will be patients that will be very interested in that. Look, I also think that the experience that we have and the data that we put up, both with Onpattro and Amvuttra gives physicians and patients confidence in this mechanism that this is going to work. And they know based on the Phase I data that we're getting to deeper knockdown.
So I don't think we're going to have a problem enrolling and it's also a space that we know very well. We've been in this space for 10-plus years. The design of this study, frankly, was -- we're confident in it based on the HELIOS-B results. We talked about 40% of the patients in HELIOS-B being on background TAF at baseline. And I mentioned the positive trends that we saw in that patient subgroup in the study.
That's really the data that we use to design this study because we're not going to have any limitation on background TAF in this study. So most patients are probably going to be on TAF.
But it's an outcome study. We do think that long term for this to be reimbursed that you need the outcome data from a payer standpoint, and it's what the physicians and the patients care about. So we are looking at an endpoint very similar to what we had in HELIOS-B, in about 1,200 patients to get the powering right on this. Again, I would say that we're confident in that based on the HELIOS-B results.
So that study is underway. We do think -- and the other element of the endpoint is it's an event-driven end point, right? That's another learning from HELIOS-B, right? The event rates in HELIOS-B were much lower than what we've seen in prior studies. We were white knuckling that a little bit, obviously, up into the end, just like everybody in the market. And so we learned from that. And so these will be patients that are earlier in the progression of the disease.
As I said, they're going to be on background meds. And so we've got an event-driven endpoint, which also, I think, takes some of the risk out of the study being positive. But the study is underway, 1,200 patients. We think this is likely an approval and a launch in 2030. We will also start a polyneuropathy study before the end of the year, and that will be a smaller and a quicker study to run. And so we think that will get approval first, probably a couple of years ahead of CM, so likely in 2028. we'll be launching the product in PN. Again, that's also the expected timing of when we believe that TAF will go generic.
So we'll be getting this on the market about the time that will be happening.
Great. Well, I want to spend a bit of time on other parts of the pipeline. You presented some data at ESC, for zilebesiran. Maybe if you want to recap some of the data that you shared and also just sort of what that product could mean for the growth of Alnylam in the 2030s?
It's a good question. So this is our hypertension product, zilebesiran, targets angiotensinogen. What we're trying to do here in hypertension, which is the #1 modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease. And there's lots of products available for hypertension, orals, daily orals, actually, a lot of them are -- they're effective and they're cheap, right? A lot of those are generic. But the problem with those products is -- first and foremost, is patients don't stay on them.
They're not adherent to therapy. And so they're not getting the benefit of the product. And then secondly, the one the patient that stay on the product, given the pharmacothemics of those products, you get a fair amount of variability over a 24-hour period in terms of control of blood pressure. And that variability is also a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. And we think the profile of this product addresses both of those issues.
So this would be a once every 6-month administered product. So think about that. You don't have to worry about adherence. You get a shot, you're good for six months in terms of blood pressure control. And then given the clamped pharmacology, you get controlled continuously over a 24-hour period. So you're getting the benefit both during the day and at night.
And that nighttime dipping is really important, and you don't get very good control of that with the daily oral. So this is a product that we think both from a quantitative perspective in terms of the ability to lower blood pressure as well as the qualitative elements of it in terms of that continuous control it's really going to reduce risk in this patient setting.
So that's how we're thinking about this program. We presented data at ESC a couple of weeks ago in a Phase III study -- or excuse me, in a Phase II study, and I would talk about this Phase II study is kind of a warm-up act for the CVOT. So it was done in the same patient population. This is a high-risk CV patient population, and it was done on top of 2 to 4 of these other standard of care medicines.
And the data that we reported at ESC, we showed about a 5-millimeter mercury blood pressure lowering at three months, which is clinically meaningful. It wasn't statistically significant, even though the p-value in the 300-milligram dose that we're going to take forward was statistically significant, it wasn't -- the way the stats were designed, we couldn't claim statistical significance.
But really, what was important with KARDIA-3 is are things that we learned. I've mentioned it's a warm-up act for the CVOT, which will be about an 11,000-patient study that will run over multiple years, which is why you really want to learn as much as you can before you design and launch that study. So the things that we learned were the dose to take forward, and it's going to be an every 6-month dose. We learned about inclusion, exclusion criteria.
So looking at the patients and how they did across the different types of patients that were in the study, those that were at 140 or greater in terms of systolic blood pressure that initiated the study, and we're on a diuretic, we saw much better blood pressure, lowering 7 to 9 millimeters of mercury. So that's a learning that we'll take into the CVOT, and that will be part of the inclusion criteria in the CVOT.
And then lastly, we learned about the powering, right, how to power the study. And again, I mentioned 11,000 patients. And so we're kicking that off now. This is, again, another drug that probably will be to market around the 2030 time frame. This is a program that we're doing in partnership with Roche.
We put a partnership in place a couple of years ago. That was mostly about, frankly, from our perspective, the need to work with somebody who had commercial capabilities to launch this successfully. We just didn't feel like that was something that we could do on our own at this point. It really wasn't a financial decision. It was more about capabilities to maximize the value of the program.
So that will give us an opportunity to co-promote it alongside Roche in the U.S. and hopefully learn from them, and that will be a 50-50 profit split in the U.S. They'll have full responsibility for launching the drug outside the U.S., and we'll just get royalties on that. So an exciting program for us.
Great. You are now sort of at the final year of the P5 program. Do you plan to set new targets in 2026? And how are you thinking about what the shape of those should be?
Yes. Maybe just talk a little bit about P5 before about -- talk about what's next. Yes. So the company's had a history of putting 5-year goals out into the market. This was -- the P5 was the third iteration of those. So that was launched at JPMorgan and 2021 looked at five different things, two of which were financial goals, and that was the first time the company had included financial goals in these 5-year goals.
And I think that's because the company was just starting to build the commercial part of the business. And so the two financial goals were around a growth rate -- revenue growth rate across the period, so we committed to at least a 40% CAGR across the period. Based on the guidance that we've given for this year, we're going to beat that handily in terms of what the CAGR will be across that period.
And then we committed to getting to non-GAAP profitability, which frankly took a little bit of courage. We were a long way from profitability, and there was a lot to do to get to that point. But I think it actually really helped us that we made a public commitment to do that.
I know that internally that we felt real accountability for that as a result, and I think it created a dynamic where we were making choices at times about things that we were going to do. We couldn't afford to necessarily do everything and achieve that goal. So we've also guided to get into profitability this year, and I'm confident that we're going to do that.
I would say we're likely to do this again in terms of setting out another set of 5-year goals. I think it's been part of the Alnylam story. And a lot of times when companies do this, I think these are aspirational types of goals that maybe they're not really committed to achieving. We've really taken the opposite approach.
And these have been pretty bold goals typically when the company has put these out. And over the last 15 years, companies really achieved what it set out to do.
And so we don't want to walk away from that. And so I do anticipate that we'll do it. I mean I'm not ready to tell you what those are today, but I could generally tell you probably the areas that we're going to focus on. I don't think any of this will surprise people, but leadership in TTR. Obviously, we're 1/4 into the CM launch.
And clearly, the expectations for growth here are a big driver for where the stock is right now. So that's likely going to be an area that we'll talk about in terms of some goals over that 5-year period. Secondly is around innovation, really sort of driving towards what I would call a second act, like what should people be confident in could be a driver of growth beyond TTR.
We want to lay out some things that we anticipate achieving and accomplishing there. And then lastly, from a financial profile perspective, now that we're at profitability, how do we expect that to evolve maybe in terms of operating margins over the period. Those are the types of things that we're thinking about. So stay tuned. I do think that's something that Von will likely be talking about it at JPMorgan in January.
How do you think about capital allocation from here, and in particular, the potential role for external innovation now that you have more financial flexibility?
Yes. I mean things that we're focusing on right now in terms of investment are clearly on the commercial side, we're investing behind the launch in TTR. We had a foundation in PN. We're obviously building and scaling that up. We've done that in the U.S., and we'll continue to do that as we launch ex U.S.
On the R&D side, look, the platform has been a really productive platform for the company. And that's going to continue to -- as a result, and to continue to be the primary focus of innovation is continuing to invest behind that. Amazing platform that we've got. We talked in February at our R&D Day as an example that we're going to, by 2030, hope and expect to unlock every major tissue in the body.
And as you unlock new tissues, that opens up the opportunity for a variety of new diseases to target with the technology. So that will be the primary focus. You highlighted the fact that the company, from a financial perspective in terms of top line growth and profitability, is really moving into a place that will enable more flexibility.
So external innovation will probably also start to become part of the story. I don't have a lot to share in specifics right now, but I do think that will probably start to become more of the story, but I would point you back to internal innovation being the primary story.
Great. One more, if I may. One of the things that I hear a lot now is Alnylam fantastic story, but I feel like I missed it from a stock perspective. What you say to those folks that know the story well, I want to know what they're playing for from here?
Well, I guess a couple of things I get it, right? I mean we've had a really nice run up post the launch, but we're 1 quarter into the launch, right? So we got a long way to go on the launch, and we do expect that this is going to drive long-term growth for the company. And then secondly, we're a true platform company.
A lot of companies talk about it, but we really do have the ability to serially innovate. And so a lot of times when companies get this initial flagship commercial franchise, the real challenge becomes what's next.
I think we're going to have the ability to solve that because we've got this amazing platform. And so I would tell people to start taking a look at the things that we've got in the pipeline. I think over time, hopefully, we're going to deliver more data that's going to give people more confidence in that. But I do believe we're going to have the ability long term to drive diversified growth as well.
Great. Jeff, thanks so much for joining us.
Thank you.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Morgan Stanley 23rd Annual Global Healthcare Conference
1. Question Answer
All right. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us at the Morgan Stanley Global Healthcare Conference. I'm Michael Ulz, one of the biotech analysts here, and it's my pleasure to introduce Jeff Poulton, CFO of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. Before we get started, I just need to read a quick disclosure. For important disclosures, please see the Morgan Stanley research disclosure website at www.morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures. And if you have any questions, please reach out to your Morgan Stanley sales representative. And with that, Jeff, thanks for sharing your time with us today. We really appreciate it. And maybe to kick things off, if you can just give a brief introduction to Alnylam and then we can hop into some Q&A.
Great. Thanks for hosting and having us here today. I'm at Alnylam and Alnylam is a company that's developed a new class of medicines based on Nobel Prize-winning science, RNAi or RNA interference. And it's been about a 25-year journey for the company. I would say the first 15 years were really around particularly on delivery, figuring out how to get the medicines to the right parts of the body and in the right cells in the body. And once that was figured out, things really started to change for the company. And the way the company is positioned today is there's 6 products that are in the market that were discovered in Alnylam's labs. 4 of those products are being marketed and sold by the company on our own. The other 2 are through partners. We've got a pipeline of 20-plus medicines in the clinic, all using that same underlying technology. And from a financial perspective, we're at a point in time where we're really transitioning the company from being a loss-making company to one that's being profitable. A lot of focus right now on the TTR franchise.
We sort of described that as a flagship commercial franchise, and we think we're at the beginning phases of a lot of growth given the expansion of the label into the cardiomyopathy part of the market. I know we're going to talk more about that through the fireside chat. Again, from a innovation perspective, we continue to be very focused on internal innovation, organic growth, continuing to put money behind the platform that's been very productive. We're very focused on continuing to drive things forward in the pipeline. So there's a second act beyond TTR. I think the investment community over time here is that they get more confident in that launch trajectory, we'll probably start to focus on that more, and we welcome that. We are focused on that. And then lastly, I'm thinking about the -- now that we're profitable, what does that sort of pace of profitability look like over the next 5 years or so. So we're in a very fortunate position right now.
Yes. Great. Thanks for that introduction. And like you said, you've made some tremendous progress over the years and lots to talk about here. But maybe before we start digging into some of that, earlier this week, you announced a financing. So maybe tell us a little bit about that.
Yes. We did a transaction yesterday where we issued some a -- convertible notes, $575 million worth. This is really a refinancing. We had done our inaugural convert financing back in 2022, and those notes matured in 2027. At the time that we did that inaugural financing, which was about $1 billion worth of notes, we bought cap call protection on those notes when they were issued that protected us from dilution as a company up to a share price of $424 a share. Following our Q2 results where we reported strong initial results in the U.S. and cardiomyopathy stock blew through that $424. And so that -- those convertible notes are getting more expensive now because they're beyond the cap call protection that we have. And so what we did with this transaction is with the money that we raised, obviously, on the new convert, we're establishing a much higher price for dilution on those shares. And that cash that we raised plus the cash from the balance sheet allowed us to retire a majority of the original convert yesterday.
Didn't get it all, and there's probably more to do on that at some point. But it really reduces us to that exposure of those notes given where the share price was. And the convert market is in a good space right now. And I think we're a high-quality issuer. So we got really good terms on the new convert as well, a 0% coupon and up 40% on the strike price. And then we put a cap call on top of that, that protects us to 75% of accretion from where the stock was when we issued yesterday. These are 3-year notes. So that would put dilution at over $800 a share over the next 3 years, if it goes beyond that. But we should be in a position over the next 3 years to retire these notes and probably be out of the convertible market at that point, given the financial profile of the company of getting to profitability, we'll have more options in terms of the way we would finance the business if we need to go out and get external funding.
Yes. Makes sense. And why don't we move to TTR cardiomyopathy. I'm sure you're familiar with that one and all the questions you get.
I am.
So I guess, first, just congratulations on the strong launch so far. And maybe just talk about what the key drivers behind that have been.
Yes. So we got approval in the U.S. for the expanded label to include cardiomyopathy at the end of March. And so the second quarter was the initial quarter of launch activity in the U.S. Before the launch, we had really been guiding the market to anticipate that this was going to be a second half of the year kind of story in terms of when we would start to see revenues increase associated with cardiomyopathy. And that's based on the fact that this is a Part B, it's a buy-and-bill drug. And so there's some things that have to happen both with the payers as well as the providers to enable that initial ordering and actually generate the revenue. And I would say, in the second quarter, the big surprise -- positive surprise for us was how quickly we were able to unlock access, both at a provider -- on a provider level and on a payer level.
On the provider side, the way that most of these patients get treated in the U.S. is there's about 170 health systems, which are like networks of hospitals where the majority of these patients are treated today. And again, we expect that it would take between the start of the second quarter and the end of the year to get our drug on formulary across those 170 health systems. That was largely complete in the second quarter, which is really what the unlock was to start the ordering and start getting patients treated. So that was terrific, right? So the results that we reported in the U.S. for TTR reflected about $170 million of growth between Q2 and Q1. Now that's PN and CM combined. I don't have the ability to report PN revenue separate from CM because it's the same product. It's the same SKU. When orders come in, it's for AMVUTTRA, not for PN or CM. But we do have a nice long history of what the PN business was growing at.
And if you look back over the last 4 or 5 quarters in the U.S. That was growing quarter-on-quarter about $15 million or $20 million a quarter. So obviously, a major step-up in terms of growth. We went up to $170 million. We attributed $20 million of that to the PN business and $150 million to CM. So a really very, very strong start. And we estimated there were 1,400 patients, commercial patients that were on therapy. Those -- none of those patients were patients that came out of the trial, right, the HELIOS-B trial. Those were all new patients, new to therapy for AMVUTTRA. And that 1,400 patients based on pricing, again, sort of sync up with the $150 million in revenue that we attribute to the CM business in the U.S.
And that -- the strength of that result and the fact that we really accelerated revenue into the quarter allowed us to upgrade the guidance for the year. Our top line revenue guidance went up $575 million, which was a massive increase almost all of that driven by the TTR franchise. I think the TTR franchise went up north of $550 million. So we're excited about the start. There's still a lot to do here. There's a couple of additional markets that we're opening up right now outside the U.S. Mostly the international opportunity is going to be more of a 2026 kind of unlock in terms of when we're going to see access and reimbursement. But we're off to a good start. And I know you're going to have some other questions about understanding the source of that business, so I'll hold glance on that.
Yes. So I wanted to get your sense of early treatment utilization, where that's happening, front line, second line, combos, et cetera?
Yes. I think initially, what we saw the initial start forms, which is kind of the prescription for these high-cost medicines, it was mostly second line. So these are patients that were on tafamidis that were probably waiting -- ultimately waiting for the approval that we're probably not doing well on tafamidis. And so right out of the gate, it was mostly second line. But as the quarter progressed, the first-line business progressively over the quarter was growing. And by the end of the quarter, it was pretty balanced in terms of the sources of the business, first line and second line. So we do expect that, that's likely going to be the profile going forward, which I think is actually a very good place for us to be that we're going to have 2 sources fueling growth, both first line and second line.
And we're probably going to be unique in that regard in the market today. I mean, tafamidis has really had the market to themselves for the last 5 years. Bridge launched last November. We launched at the end of March. I think what we're seeing on the second-line opportunity is when patients are not doing well on tafamidis, obviously, you have a choice, you can switch them to another stabilizer or you could switch them to an orthogonal mechanism. And what we're finding is the vast majority are choosing to switch to an orthogonal mechanism, which makes sense with the way cardiologists like to treat their patients. And so I think that's going to be a source of business for a period of time for us.
We're really focused actually on the first-line opportunity because long term, that's really where growth in the category is going to come from. Today, TTR, we think in the cardiomyopathy part of the market, it's about 20% treated. And so long term, that's really what's going to drive the growth of the category is increasing diagnosis and treatment rates, and we want to compete effectively there. I think we got off to a good start. There's more to do there. I mean this is a progressive fatal disease, right? So patients and physicians want to choose the best, most efficacious product as soon as they can. This is not one where you want to try this one and see how they do and then put them -- like once you progress in this disease, it's hard to get back what you lost.
So you want to get on the best product right away. So it's our job now based on the HELIOS-B data to work with the physicians, educate them and make sure they understand the profile of the product, which we think based on the data from HELIOS-B, we do think it's the best product. That's obviously something that we need. We'll see how that plays out over time. Just to remind people about HELIOS-B, I would say it had the highest bar in terms of challenge to show an efficacious product because that was a study that was run in what we describe as a contemporary patient population. So these were generally less advanced in the course of the disease than prior studies. And for sure, they were better treated and 40% of the patients in the study at baseline were on tafamidis. And then you had another 10% or those that added on tafamidis during the course of the study.
So the fact that we showed efficacy in the overall population in the monotherapy population, which were the way the study was segmented, we hit endpoints on all those. And then if you look at the combination part of the study, patients did well. It wasn't powered statistically to show statistical significance. But in that combination part of the study, on every endpoint, it favored AMVUTTRA, right, AMVUTTRA and TAF compared to TAF alone. So it was a high bar, and we met that threshold. So really, that's really now what we're doing in terms of educating the community, both with our medical team as well as our commercial team to make the case that this should be the product, the first product that you reach for when you have a patient with this disease.
And what kind of feedback are you getting sort of early in the launch here from...?
Yes, it's early. Obviously, we're 1 quarter in. But I think the things that we're hearing first from an efficacy standpoint is they're impressed by the all-cause mortality data from HELIOS-B, right? And that was an outcome study, and that's probably the thing that patients most care about is what's the impact on the hard outcomes. So physicians like that data. I think they like the breadth of the label. So we're the only product in the space in the U.S. that's got the full disease in the label, right? So we've got hereditary PN. We've got CM in both the hereditary as well as the wild-type population. We're the only product of the 3 that has that. The other 2 just have the cardiomyopathy piece. They don't have the polyneuropathy piece. So we've got the full breadth of the label. I think that they like the route of administration, the once-a-quarter profile.
It sort of ensures compliance, right? Sometimes even with progressive fatal disease, patients aren't disciplined around taking the medicines, right, daily orals, either once or twice a day. So I think it gives the physicians and ultimately, the payers like that, too, because they're paying for these drugs, and they like to know that the patients are going to get the benefit of it. And I would say the last thing, and this really speaks to, I think, the commercial execution that we talked about earlier in terms of the earlier unlock. Physicians have found it easy to get patients on the drug, which is super important, right, given the competitive nature of this space, we're the only drug right now that's a buy-and-bill drug.
And so you don't want that to be creating additional complexity for physicians when they want to put a patient on drug. And that's really where I think the team did a lot of good work in advance. And then as soon as we have the label, the ability to go out and get the drug on formulary, I think we also benefited because we've been in polyneuropathy for 5 years. So we've got the buy-and-bill sort of infrastructure in place. We've just expanded that. But that's gone well and the physicians appreciate that. Their time is limited. They don't want to have to get tied up and fighting with insurance companies and doing a lot of paperwork to get these patients on therapy when they want to put them on. So far, so good on that front.
Yes. Can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing in combination use?
Yes.
And I just ask because KOLs we talked with seemed to be excited about that potential...
Look, there's interest in that. And I think, fortunately, for us, because we had that pretty sizable segment in HELIOS-B, where they were 40% of the patients were on TAF at baseline, we have some pretty good data there. And actually, if you look in the clinical trial section of the label, there's a forest plot that shows the various segments in the study across the primary endpoint. And you can see it there, right, that it favored the combination compared to TAF alone, it wasn't stat sig. But I think that's helpful, right, as physicians and patients think about the possibility of combination therapy, they'd like to do it. I think it's going to be difficult to do it broadly until the TAF goes generic because at least in the commercial part of the market and the Medicare Advantage part of the market, most of the payers are putting policies in place that restrict combination use.
The original or fee-for-service part of the market, it's probably where it's happening today because there aren't policies that would restrict that. So well, I don't -- I can't quantify it, but I know that there is some combination experience that's taking place. We do think that when TAF goes generic and our expectation, I think, is consistent with what Pfizer has messaged historically that they expect generic entry by the end of 2028. That's where I think that would sort of open up the opportunity for more combination use more broadly. And again, I think we're well positioned based on the results for HELIOS-B and the data that made its way into the label.
And maybe you can talk a little bit about access. You touched on it a little bit, very easy to get the drug. I think before the launch, just given the pricing, there was a little bit of concern about that. So maybe how have you been able to manage that? Does that become an issue as you keep launching a drug or not? Or...?
Yes. So far, so good. Maybe just a little bit of the thinking behind the price. I mean, I think the first reason that we chose to price it the way we did, which is we didn't change the price. We had a price in the market for polyneuropathy. So when we expanded the label in the U.S., we kept the price the same, which is higher than the other products that are in the market. There's I think 2 or 3 things that led to that decision. First is the data from HELIOS-B that we've talked about, we think it was really strong, hit every endpoint in the study. And that, in combination with the fact that we're offering payers value-based agreements, which essentially is our commitment to the payers that the patients are going to stay on the drug and get the benefit of the drug. Payers are willing to pay for drugs like this when they know the patients are going to get the benefit of it and then stay out of the hospital, stay out of events occurring that cost them more money. And with the commitments that we're making with the value-based agreements, that really helps with the payer community.
The other thing is that this is a rare disease. People forget that a little bit because they like to talk about this being such a significant opportunity, but it is a rare disease. It's an -- we got an orphan designation and it's a progressive and fatal disease. And typically, payers are hesitant about and these types are diseases getting very involved in forcing patients on one product or another. That was part of the calculus. And then lastly, what's really important to the community and the physicians as well is what does this cost the patients to get on the drug. And because this is a Part B medicine, what we saw in polyneuropathy is about 70% of the patients have 0 out of pocket, right? And the remaining 30%, it's about $3,500 per year in terms of median and that's before potentially them getting third-party support to help pay for that. So from a patient perspective, this is an affordable medicine, even though it's a high-cost drug. So those were the reasons that we chose to price it the way we did.
So far, so good, right? I think that we commented on the Q2 results call that on the payer side that where payers have put policies in place in Medicare Advantage and in commercial now most of those are first line that are enabling first-line access, meaning there's no step edits in place that require you to go through one of the other medicines in the space. There's a couple of examples on the commercial side where that did happen. That's expected, not a surprise to us, and we think we can continue to manage and work through that. I will say that this isn't permanent. This isn't -- we're done. I mean these are policies that can't be reviewed and revised on an annual basis. So this is something that we're going to have to continue to work closely with the payer community to make sure that we have the drug positioned as a first-line drug.
Yes. Makes sense. And maybe just going back to the price a little bit and gross to net over time and just what you're seeing there and your expectations?
Yes. So when we -- on the approval call, when we announced that we were keeping the price the same, we did say that we anticipated that gross to nets would increase gradually over time, meaning net price will come down gradually over time. And I still think that's the right guidance for the market. On the Q2 call, we did talk about what happened with gross to nets in the second quarter itself. And we did see an increase in gross to nets in the quarter. And there were a couple of things that drove that. One was increased 340B utilization. there's rebates that you pay on that. And that was driven by the cardiomyopathy launch. And we expected that.
The other thing that happened in the quarter is actually part of our business gets processed as a Part D sale, even though we're a Part B product, and that's the home care part of the market, which is about 20% or 25% of the business. And given the IRA redesign in terms of who pays for what with these high-cost medicines, 20% of that cost is the responsibility of the manufacturer. So for that part of our business, we saw an increase in gross to net. So what we guided to was that we thought we would see gross to nets increase about mid-single digits this year on a full year basis versus 2024. And beyond that, I would say, '26 and beyond, we continue to expect that we'll see a gradual increase in gross to nets over time.
Got you. And maybe last question on TTR. Obviously, you're early in the launch having success. As you move through the next few quarters, like what are the key drivers in your view or how do things sort of progress?
It's really about focusing on driving demand in that first-line positioning for the product. We talked about the importance of that given the -- where the market is in terms of treatment and diagnosis rates. And given that, that's really what's going to drive long-term growth in the category, we're really focused on that first-line positioning. We're 1 quarter in, and physicians have these patients coming in every day now, and they have to make choices on what products they want to put their patients on. So that's really where we're focused, and that's something that we'll be tracking carefully over time. I think the other thing is we mentioned that we've got a couple of additional markets that we're launching in the second half of the year, Japan and Germany. I think as we move into 2026, given that the access and reimbursement time lines in other major markets in Europe, we'll start to add more markets in Europe next year as well. So that will be a bigger contributor in terms of growth. One point of clarification for people on the ex U.S. launches.
It's very likely that in most of these launches or markets when we launch, we'll be launching at a lower price than what we're at today, given the way access and reimbursement negotiations work ex U.S. And so that means for the polyneuropathy business ex U.S., it will be a headwind when we lower price. And so you probably won't have the same step that you saw in the U.S. There will be a little bit of bite taken out of that initially. Certainly, the volume is going to be more than enough to make up for that, and we'll ultimately see good growth ex U.S., but it might be just a little bit slower in terms of the impact because of that. So just trying to manage expectations on that front. The international part of our business in TTR has historically been a significant contributor to the overall franchise. It's been -- 40% to 50% of the polyneuropathy business has come ex U.S. So we do expect that this will be a meaningful contributor longer term ex U.S. as well.
Yes. Makes sense. Maybe we can move to inclisiran real quick, and maybe talk about how that's different from AMVUTTRA. And then kind of what the advantages is of getting that to market?
Yes. So this will be our third-generation TTR product. Probably most of you are familiar. The first product was ONPATTRO. Again, it's a silencer every 3-week IV infusion. So very high burden of treatment. AMVUTTRA was a huge step in terms of convenience advantage to once a quarter subcu. What this third-generation product, inclisiran offers is a couple of things. deeper knockdown and more consistent knockdown. AMVUTTRA and ONPATTRO, both, we get to about 85% knockdown and obviously, very good efficacy with that. What we showed in the Phase I study with inclisiran is we get it to 95% and hold it there. And actually, the variability around 90%, it's a sort of tighter spread than what we see around the 85%. So deeper knockdown typically translates into better efficacy. So our anticipation and hope is that we're going to see better efficacy with this product because of the deeper knockdown. The other benefit, which is, I think, something that patients always welcome is the durability is longer.
So this is an every 6-month dose product, so twice a year rather than 4 times a year. There's some additional sort of business advantages of the drug as well. We've got a pretty significant royalty that we pay to Sanofi on sales of AMVUTTRA that -- between 15% and 30%, and it ramps up to that 30% level pretty quickly. There's no royalty burden to Sanofi on sales of inclisiran. It's obviously a substantial margin advantage of this product. And then it's also got an intellectual property that pushes out into the 2040s, AMVUTTRA is 2036. And so hopefully, it extends the franchise and expands the franchise both. So this is an important program for us. And we've announced -- we've initiated the Phase III or the pivotal study for cardiomyopathy. That will be an outcome study, 1,200 patients, likely 2030 is what we're talking about in terms of launch. And then the polyneuropathy study, we intend to initiate that before the end of the year, so in the next few months. And that will be a quicker to market kind of study, probably a couple of years quicker than the CM study would be.
How do you think about when that gets to market, how you transition patients? Obviously, better profile, but there are other things you can do to increase that in any way?
I mean if you look at what happened with AMVUTTRA when we launched, right, I mean that went from -- again, every 3-week IV to once a quarter subcu, we did not have to work very hard, right? And very similar efficacy profile. We didn't have to work very hard to switch that business that was preferred very quickly by patients. Here, hopefully, we'll have better efficacy and more convenient. I think if that's the profile, I think there's going to be a high demand from patients that are on AMVUTTRA to want to switch. So I think we can switch that business, obviously, ultimately, depending on the outcome of the study.
Good. Makes sense. Maybe we can switch to zilebesiran. You recently presented some data there, Phase II data, KARDIA-3. Maybe give us some key highlights and next steps for that program.
Yes. I mean let me just talk about what we're trying to do here in this space, and then we can talk about the results with KARDIA-3. So this is a program for hypertension. And there's plenty of effective therapies on the market for hypertension, a lot of them generic. But the challenge with those products is they're oral and patients don't take them religiously on a daily basis. They don't stay on the meds, right? So you don't get the benefit or advantage of the medicine. And for the patients that stay on them, again, it's intermittent in terms of how they're taking these. So what that creates is variability in blood pressure control. And that variability is a risk factor for hypertension. And so this is a medicine that could be given once every 6 months, turn it on for 6 months and you get that tonic control of blood pressure. So you get the blood pressure lowering, which should reduce risk for these patients, but you also get a higher quality control of blood pressure because you reduce that variability, you get ton of control both at day and night.
We think that is another factor that will lower risk for these patients. So that's what we're trying to do with this program. So the KARDIA-3 data, I would describe it as a warm-up act for the outcome study. So this was a study that looked at zilebesiran in combination with 2 to 4 of these background meds. And what we found is we got clinically meaningful blood pressure lowering 5 millimeters of mercury. And so that in and of itself gives us confidence to take the drug forward. But the things that we learned that will apply to the to the Phase III study. Number one is the dose that we're going to take forward. So the 300-milligram dose is the right one to take forward every 6 months, 1 injection every 6 months. But we also learned some about inclusion/ exclusion. That 5 millimeters of mercury, if you look at the patients that were on diuretics that were in the study, you saw like 7 to 9 millimeters of blood pressure lowering.
So that will be an inclusion criteria in the Phase III study or in the pivotal study, the outcome study is that we want patients on diuretics. And also just based on the results from the study, we made helped to sort of fine-tune the powering assumptions. So this will be an 11,000-patient study. And the reason we're running this as an outcome study rather than just a blood pressure lowering study is what I described before, we think the benefits of this are twofold, not only the blood pressure lowering, which will reduce risk, but it's the quality of the blood pressure lowering and that tonic control. That in and of itself should also be risk reducing. The only way to show that is to run an outcome study and see what you get in terms of lowering of a MACE-type endpoint. So that's what we're going to do, and we think that would then position the drug well for an attractive commercial launch.
You just talked about time lines and...
Yes, it's an outcome study, 11,000 patient study. So a lot of this is going to -- we can fine-tune as we see how enrollment is going. But our estimate is that this is around the end of the decade kind of launch. It's a -- we've got to run this a long time to accrue enough events to see the benefit here. So yes, it's probably 2030.
Yes. Got you. And maybe in the last few minutes here, I can ask you a couple of macro questions you've been asked sort of topical, we've been asking all the companies. So we'll start maybe with China's rising biotech innovation, how are you thinking about your competitive position here? And will this influence your R&D or BD strategy going forward?
What was the first part of the question?
Just China's -- China...
China. China, yes, so we don't have investment in China today, either commercially or from an R&D standpoint. And I think that's something that we're thinking about carefully. Certainly, we're monitoring and seeing all the innovation on the R&D side that's happening very rapidly in China today. And I think our feeling is that we need to get closer to that. So that's something that we're exploring in terms of what that could look like. So I would say just kind of TBD on that.
Yes. Got you. And then second question, how are you currently leveraging artificial intelligence or thinking about AI's future disruption?
Yes. I mean I think we're probably doing a lot of the things that a lot of other companies are doing in terms of just improving the efficiency of certain processes using AI, that's probably not that exciting. We are doing that kind of stuff. I think the stuff that's more strategic that could be more meaningful to the overall business. On the commercial side, we are using AI in terms of sort of directing our sales force efforts. And I think that we've had some success with that. I think on the research side, we're certainly doing some stuff with AI around target, mining genetic databases for targets and things like that. So probably more to come on these types of things, but those would be the 2 areas, I think, strategically that we're investing more time and energy commercially as patient finding and then helping us sort of find the right targets to go after with our technology.
Yes. Okay. And then maybe last macro question. What has been most impactful for Alnylam from the regulatory side? Would it be changes with the FDA, MFN or tariffs?
I would say, first of all, maybe I'll go through this one by one. I think in terms of interactions with the FDA, we haven't seen any changes. I'm fortunate -- maybe we're fortunate, but I'm happy we got approved with the HELIOS-B, right, when we did, which was at the end of March. But we really haven't seen any changes in the interactions there. So, so far, so good. MFN, I think you're probably hearing from everybody, we're watching this very carefully. We're trying to understand where this is going. We understand what the administration is trying to achieve.
If we were asked to participate in that, we would constructively engage. We've not been one of the companies that's gotten one of these letters. So for now, it's kind of watch and wait and try to understand where this may be going. But right now, there's not a lot of specifics. I think on the last point about tariffs, I think we're in a pretty good position in terms of the vast majority of our manufacturing is done in the U.S. and the intellectual property for where it sits geographically as most of that sits in the U.S. as well. So we don't see a significant risk to our business associated with tariffs as a result.
And just on MFN, since you're more rare disease, is that maybe...
That's a good point. I mean I think on the IRA, if you've got an orphan designation, you're actually not subject to price negotiations in the future. Again, I don't know how MFN is going to work if it continues to work its way forward. Could there be a carve-out for orphan products? Maybe. And if so, obviously, we'd be in a good position. All 4 of the products that we're marketing and selling in the U.S. are orphan designation products. So if that were the case, that would obviously would be good for us.
Yes. And maybe just last minute. I'll ask just one last question in terms of -- we talked about some of this already, but just the catalyst path here and as we look over the next year, like maybe walk us through some of the...
I mean the biggest catalyst here without doubt is going to be commercial performance with AMVUTTRA. That's where the market is really focused, and we understand that. And so internally, we're putting an amazing amount of focus on that, too, and we're investing behind that launch to drive success. So that's the biggest catalyst. Again, I talked earlier, I think at some point, as people will get a few more quarters behind us and people get more confidence in that revenue trajectory, people are going to then start to turn to the pipeline. We've talked about a number of the things, late-stage programs, inclisiran and zilebesiran. But we've got a lot of interesting things going on in other parts of the pipeline, including CNS.
That's the next tissue that we've started to unlock. And we have demonstrated with the first program, mivelsiran that we can get it into the brain, we can get knockdown and we can do it safely. What we haven't delivered is any proof-of-concept data yet, and that's what we're working on right now. And we've got a number of additional interesting programs that we've moved into the clinic for -- into the CNS as well, including our Huntington's program. So let that data mature a little bit, and then hopefully, we'll show some proof of concept there, and that hopefully will start to get people more enthusiastic about the potential of those programs, but we're excited about that.
Yes. Great. Looks like we're out of time. Thanks so much, Jeff. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Citi's Biopharma Back to School Conference
1. Question Answer
Thank you all. Welcome all again to the 2025 Citi Biopharma Conference in Boston. Next on the docket, we have Alnylam. If you could, I guess, introduce us and kind of tell us a little bit about the company for no one who's -- for people who haven't heard of you before, bring us up to speed, that would be great.
[indiscernible] very productive organic platform for the company. We've got 6 products in the market today, 4 of which that we're marketing ourselves, which came out of our research labs, meaning the Skys Labs. And we've got a terrific pipeline of things that we think they are going to continue the growth trajectory for the company over the long term. And I know we're going to get into a number of those topics here in the next 40 minutes. I think the big focus right now for investors on the company is clearly the launch in ATTR cardiomyopathy, and we reported strong initial results, which was in Q2 in terms of what we delivered. Again, I know we're going to get into the details on that, but that enabled us to upgrade the guidance for this year pretty substantially, and I think got people pretty excited about what we were able to say about the initial demand for the product. So we're excited. Yes.
I guess going way back when, I mean, RNAi has been around theoretically for a long time. And much more recently, you started getting commercial approvals. It's a Nobel Prize -- there's a Nobel Prize associated with it. How has RNAi evolved? Obviously, at the beginning, there was a vision of all these different indications that could be approached. How has it evolved from early days to now?
That's definitely, Kevin, one for you.
That's fine. I've been with the company over 20 years. I've been in RNAi, probably 27 years. So I think the beauty of RNAi is that it's a naturally occurring mechanism. It's in every cell in the human body. And so the idea that you could take a small RNA and deliver it inside a cell and get it to co-op the mechanism by which microRNAs, which are these naturally occurring RNAis work was really pie in the sky when we first started.
As we moved along, there were really 2 key things we needed to solve. One was how do you get a small RNA inside a cell and how do you keep it stable long enough that it can act. And so over time, we solve that problem first with lipid nanoparticles for patisiran and then later on with something called GalNAc, which is really a small molecule that you put on the end and you drag it into the liver and then stabilizing the molecules themselves. And that really allowed us to have a pharmacology, which is fairly unprecedented. You can do a subcu injection once every 6 months, maybe once a year as we go forward and lower a protein that might be involved in human disease, right?
And so we started out in the liver. We've now moved over into the central nervous system and are currently expanding into muscle and into adipose heart and other places. We announced at our R&D Day that really our goal is to get into every major organ and to then start to go after diseases in that fashion. So it's been a very -- it's been a long journey. We've had our ups and downs, but the technology just works.
I'm going to definitely dig into the -- outside the liver at some point here. Naturally, people are focusing a lot more on something more recent. And that, of course, is AMVUTTRA, its strong launch. Now there's been a certain evolution in ATTR. I think that the expectations for what -- how significant it could be has changed a lot over the last few years. How do you see the ATTR market now versus how you saw it even 2 or 3 years ago?
Yes. I mean maybe a couple of things is it's a rare disease, but it's a big market, which maybe seems sort of like an oxymoron, but it's the truth based on what we know about it. We think that -- talk about the wild-type part of the market for just a second, but then I actually want to pivot to polyneuropathy, which is the place that we've been sort of playing commercially for the last 5 or 6 years. We think the wild-type part of the market, which is a cardiomyopathy market is about 300,000-plus globally in terms of number of patients. And we think that's largely underpenetrated today. Maybe about 20% of the patients are being treated today with cardiomyopathy.
We, again, mentioned earlier, we started out in the hereditary polyneuropathy part of the market. The hereditary part of the market is probably 50,000 patients and about maybe half of that polyneuropathy. So that's the place that we've been playing from a commercial standpoint for the last 5 years is about 25,000, 30,000 patients. We did $1.2 billion in revenue last year. That was polyneuropathy only, and that was growing more than 30% a year. We're probably somewhere around 5,000 patients on therapy for polyneuropathy. Now we're talking about opening up, obviously, with the label expansion first in the U.S. to what I described in terms of a much, much larger market opportunity.
So there -- and I think what you've seen in the first 2 quarters of this year with the second product that launched, which was Bridge's product and then Alnylam's product in the second quarter. And if you watch kind of how Pfizer's business has been evolving, there's a lot of growth here already. And our expectation is as you get more voices in the market for a rare disease like this, that drives diagnosis and ultimately, treatment rates up. So that's what we're expecting is going to happen over time as you may even see an acceleration of that growth. And it's been a terrific franchise for Pfizer, right? The CM for TAF, that's a $6 billion franchise. So there's a huge opportunity here, number one.
And then the second thing that I would highlight that we're certainly continuing to learn is there's still a lot of unmet need in the market. I mean the Pfizer franchise has been a great franchise for them, but there's still a lot of patients, as I mentioned, that aren't diagnosed or treated. But the patients that are on drug, they're not all responding adequately to the therapy. And now there's some choices for those patients. And so particularly for us with an orthogonal mechanism of action, right, the first one is an orthogonal to the stabilizer mechanism. I think that's a real opportunity for us as well in terms of that second-line setting. So the size and the unmet need are the things that I think that we continue to see here.
Towards that end, I know a few years ago, it was kind of viewed as a zero-sum game. There's going to be winners and there's going to be losers. And maybe that position is starting to shift to a degree. How do you see the coexistence of all that?
I think we've said that for a long time is that we don't think that this is a one company, one product, take all kind of market opportunity. It's a significant opportunity. So I do think that's the case. I mean we're obviously very focused on our product and educating and getting it into as many patients' hands as possible. But I do think it's a market that there can be multiple companies and products that are going to do well. I think you're seeing the beginning signs of that already.
In the early run here for you, are you starting to hear of an overall view on how the doctors look at each therapy, what types of patients might go aware versus other?
It's probably a little bit early. I mean I think that right now, because there's really been only one product for these patients, certainly, tafamidis is getting the majority of the new patients still are going on tafamidis, which is, again, I would say at this point to be expected. But this is a progressive fatal disease. So the physicians and the patients ultimately want to be on the best product they can be on as quickly and as early as they can be on that product. And so it's our responsibility and job now to make sure that we're educating the community as to why we think AMVUTTRA should be the product that they should reach for.
Again, it's not a disease that you want to put a patient on a product, see how they do for a period of time. If they're not doing well, then move them up, right? So that's really our responsibility. It's probably, again, a little bit too early to say exactly how those choices are being made. I mean we did talk on the Q2 results call about the patients that came on to therapy, there were about 1,400 patients that started therapy with AMVUTTRA in the U.S. for cardiomyopathy in the second quarter. And the initial patients right out of the approval were probably more second line, so more switches, maybe some add-on, but mostly switches, I would say. But over the course of the quarter, there was really a pretty good balance in terms of first line and second line.
So for us, I think the real priority is that first-line setting because long term, because what we talked about -- mentioned earlier in terms of the market being underpenetrated. And that's really what's going to drive growth over time is diagnosis and getting new patients on therapy. We want to -- that's where we want to win. That's what we're prioritizing. And again, because it's progressive and fatal, you should go on the most potent effective therapy as early as you can. We think that based on HELIOS-B results, we can make a very persuasive and compelling case that, that should be our product.
So that's what we're focused on. I think the advantage we've got on the second line side, which I mentioned earlier is we're the first orthogonal mechanism. So I think we're going to probably get a lot of that business as a result of the way cardiologists make decisions about moving patients around, and we're seeing that early on. So we're likely going to have 2 pretty good sources of growth over the long haul here, we think, both in that first- and second-line setting.
In terms of that initial couple of quarters performance, do you find that the initial prescribers are doctors who used to prescribe it under the polyneuropathy label and that there's going to be more of a -- it's going to take more time to kind of move into the broader cardiology...
I'd say it's pretty broad already in terms of what we're seeing in terms of uptake. It's really balanced first line, second line, community setting, academic setting. We talked about a pretty significant expansion of new prescribers in the second quarter compared to the first quarter. And so I think it's both physicians that are experienced with it on the polyneuropathy side, but early indications in the second quarter as we were also expanding it to physicians to use it that had never used it before. So I think that's going to continue on a go-forward basis.
I mean back in the day, I think that there's typically a 3- to 5-year mortality for patients when they were diagnosed with cardiomyopathy. Has there been an evolution in that number since tafamidis was initially approved? And I mean, as it gets longer, obviously, that means patients are going to be on medications longer itself. How should we be viewing that when we try to estimate what the true size of the market opportunity is?
Kevin, do you want to talk about that?
I think clearly, from the HELIOS-B results and other results, patients are going to live longer, right? And that's the whole goal of the therapy is to keep them alive all the way until their natural lifespan. So I think you've seen that in this disease over time is that you want to get diagnosed early and then you want to get on drug early enough that you have a natural lifespan and maybe something else, not this disease is in the end.
When looking at what's going on, I guess, with the big initial competition, Pfizer, who's been around for a while, $6 billion, they just recently announced this week that they're basically pulling VYNDAQEL. How does that really affect things in your mind?
Yes. I think -- I don't know for sure, but I think our belief probably is that's sort of a commercial decision, right, 4 pills for VYNDAQEL, 1 pill a day for VYNDAMAX, and they're competing probably pretty extensively right now with Bridge and Bridge is twice a day, 2 pills sort of each setting. So 4 pills a day for Bridge. So I suspect that it's about convenience for patients. Most of the business was already on VYNDAMAX. I think it was 80% of the patients from what I understand are already on VYNDAMAX. But that's my suspicion or our suspicion, I should say. But we don't think that this changes the IP situation in terms of when we would expect generic entry in the U.S., which I think Pfizer has consistently said end of 2028. And I think that's a view that we share. I don't think this is about that.
Got it. I mean, I guess you had talked about how it's -- you're targeting the frontline population. Have investors still kind of asking questions, trying to understand are there -- what types of questions are the payers actually asking and try to determining which to use? Obviously, there's a Part B drug versus Part D. So it's 2 different sides of the payer world. Are there -- do these 2 sides of the world actually talk? What's actually happening...
It's a good question. Maybe I should talk a little bit about the second quarter results and probably the key to that actually was sort of the progress that we made in the quarter on the access front. We had originally guided the market that we thought this was largely going to be a second half of the year story in terms of revenue growth for the company, meaning that we didn't expect a lot in the second quarter, and that's because of what you said. This is a Part B buy-and-bill drug. So there's really 2 key steps that you have to take to unlock physicians' ability to start using the product and putting patients on therapy and generating revenue.
One is on the payer side, you got to work with the payers to get policies in place that enable utilization of the drug. I mean patients can get on it without those policies being in place, but it's more work for the physicians in that situation. And so we've been really successful there on the policy side, on the Medicare Advantage and the commercial side of getting most policies in place during the quarter that enable first-line utilization of the product, which I think had been somewhat of a debate about whether or not that we were going to be successful with that. So that was one step.
But probably the more important step and the one that we thought was going to take longer is the providers. So the ones that are doing the buy and bill and the purchasing of the product, administering and then getting reimbursed for it. The majority of the providers that are doing the buy-and-bill work at health systems, right? They think of these like networks of hospitals, about 170 of those in the U.S. that are treating the majority of these patients. We got almost all of those -- the product on formulary in the second quarter.
And I think that's what we thought was going to take a little bit more time and really probably through the end of the year before we were going to reach that level of success. And so that really was the key to the unlock in the quarter of the much quicker revenue uptake. And I think a couple of things contributed to that. One was the fact that a lot of these health systems were familiar with and they had been utilizing AMVUTTRA for polyneuropathy. So there was a familiarity there that certainly helped us.
And then second, I think it was really good commercial execution. You really can't start having these conversations with these providers until you have an approval and you have a label. But the team -- the commercial team in the U.S. did everything up to being able to have the meeting to get the product on formulary that they could in advance. And so that really accelerated things when we got the approval. So those are the things that I think really helped. I will say on the payer front in terms of the policies that are in place that enable first line, that's not planting the victory flag. That's not necessarily a forever thing. Payers have the ability on an annual basis to review their policies and make changes.
And so that's something that we're going to have to continue to work on very carefully to make sure that we maintain that kind of access. And we have signaled that we believe that over time, that our net price for AMVUTTRA in the U.S. will come down gradually, and that's largely as a result of rebating that we may have to do to maintain the kind of formulary position that we've got in terms of first line over time. But we're off to a very good start, and we're encouraged by that.
Towards that end, with the buy and bill and some of these systems and the price -- kind of the net price being lowered gradually over time, what type of inventory do these systems actually hold? And I mean, is there a theoretical risk they're taking relative to a decrease? Or is it in the contracts to kind of make up for inventory?
Yes, the health systems don't hold a lot of inventory. The inventory is really held by our distribution -- vast majority of it with sort of a single distributor that we've got. I mean this stuff is shipped out on a daily basis. So the systems that are doing the administering don't need to hold a lot of inventory here. And look, I do think that the price reductions that we're talking about are going to be pretty gradual over time. So the sort of the risk that you're highlighting is probably a very small risk for the distribution partner that we've got.
Got it. So let's jump on to the follow-on, nucresiran. There's obviously 2 dynamics to this. One is the therapy itself and what its characteristics are. And of course, that we jump over there the economic situation with nucresiran, which is very, very different. Let's start out on how the therapy itself differs?
Yes. So nucresiran is our next generation. It's -- we call it IKARIA, which is a small Greek island, right, that -- where people live a very long time. So it's a very long-acting drug. And part of what we've done there is to make this drug exceptionally clean in terms of its off-target profile. So you can dose it higher up to -- we're up to 300 milligrams, which is the go-forward dose. And we also have -- it's got a much better ability to lower TTR. So TTR is into the high 90s, right? And so our data over time suggested from the clinical trials we run that more knockdown is better. And so between the longer acting, the clean profile and the ability to get lower TTR, we're very excited about that as a follow-on drug.
I mean does the data speak to what -- I guess, to what degree of an improvement in efficacy with knockdown. I know there's been a lot of companies kind of discussing what these percentages mean.
Yes, it's hard from the trials that we've done to put an exact percentage on it, but I think the trend there is very clear. A ED70 was not as good as an ED85, which we don't think will be as good as an ED95.
And what's the status? Where does that sit in the trials? And where could we actually start seeing some data?
We were -- we've initiated the Phase III study in cardiomyopathy, and we will initiate the polyneuropathy Phase III study by the end of the year as well. So we're off to the races, I would say.
When might we see data for each trial?
I think what we've guided to is CM because it's an -- and Kevin can talk a little bit more about the study, but it's an outcome study. So it's going to need to run. It's going to be larger and need to run longer than the PN study. We haven't announced the design of the PN study yet, but likely 2030 is what we're talking about with the CM opportunity with nucresiran and the PN opportunity should be a couple of years ahead of that.
Got it. Got it. And how are the economics different for nucresiran?
Pretty significantly. I mean, I think the 2 things, I think, economically that are important. One is the royalty burden to Sanofi is 0 with nucresiran, and it's between 15% and 30% on AMVUTTRA. So that's one, obviously, fairly significant difference. And then the IP on nucresiran gives us the potential to have the franchise extend out into the 2040s. AMVUTTRA is in 2036, 2037 kind of time frame in terms of when you could see generic entry. So both of those things, obviously, economically are good for the franchise.
Now if we jump back a little bit and look, the one part we didn't really talk about was combination therapy. I know that it's expensive drug. It's hard to say right now the extent that combination can get worked in. But over time, there's a possibility that it might become easier.
Yes. We think that because of what you said, putting 2 expensive therapies together, payers are probably going to make that difficult, which is what we expect. And I think you see most policies on the Medicare Advantage and the commercial side are making that difficult to get 2 products for the same disease reimbursed. Probably there's some opportunity on the Medicare fee-for-service side, but we think that will be pretty nominal, frankly, until we get to a generic entry, and we talked about the possibility of tafamidis being generic in the U.S. by the end of 2028. We do think that will open up the opportunity for combination therapy from a payer standpoint. We're fortunate about that sort of point in time, and you can debate whether it's 2028 or sometime later.
For us, frankly, it doesn't quite matter quite as much because we've got data in the label that shows that the drug was effective in the different subgroups that we studied in HELIOS-B, which included patients that were on a background stabilizer at baseline, and we did show a positive effect across all endpoints in the study when it was used in combination versus stabilizer alone. And so I think that we're going to be well positioned when the combination opportunity opens up more broadly.
The other thing is the design of the nucresiran study is likely going to be mostly an add-on study because patients that are on a stabilizer will be -- there's no cap on that coming into the study. So most patients are very likely going to be on a stabilizer in that study. And so that -- given the size of that study, that may lead to an actual claim, a combination claim. So I think we're in a good position as the market opens up the combination therapy. There is interest, I would say, from the physicians to use it in combination, yes.
So ESC 2024 for you was about AMVUTTRA, ESC 2025 was about zilebesiran. Could you tell us about that drug and what you presented this past weekend?
You want to start?
Maybe I'll just start just with the size of the opportunity that we're looking at here. Obviously, this is a massive potential opportunity. I think there's over 200 million patients that have hypertension across the 7 largest markets and somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of the patients high CV risk and uncontrolled hypertension. And that's really the patient population that we're targeting with the CVOT. That's the patient population that we looked at in KARDIA-3.
And so this is a significant opportunity for us longer term. This is a program that's in combination with Roche. We did a deal with them a couple of years ago. And so there's a co-development, co-commercialization opportunity there. They're picking up about 60% of the cost to develop the drug. And then as we launch, we would have the opportunity to co-market it alongside them in the U.S. They'll have full commercialization rights outside the U.S. But I'll let Kevin talk a little bit more about the data that we shared at ESC from KARDIA-3 and then the plan based on some of the learnings there to move this into a CVOT.
Yes. So I was going to start first with hypertension itself. And really, the most important part about hypertension is keeping your blood pressure low tonically so that you keep it down and it doesn't go up and down. And we've published some papers recently where we've actually looked at across populations where it's those spikes in blood pressure that actually are the most harmful, especially if those spikes occur at night and you don't get the so-called nocturnal dipping where your blood pressure naturally goes down at night. And so really, this is a disease of exposure over time to too high a pressure. And so the concept here really is to once every 6 months, be able to go into your practitioner, get a subcu injection, keep your blood pressure low.
And you don't have to worry about whether you took your pill every day, whether if you didn't take the pill, your blood pressure is going to spike, whether it spikes after night. And so the data really shows in this -- especially with this nocturnal dipping that leads to bad outcomes if your blood pressure doesn't go down at night. And so that was the whole concept of this drug was to really change how hypertension is treated, which is to go in and have the ability to keep that down tonically. And so we've run a bunch of trials. We were at a Phase I, Phase II and now you've seen sort of the results come out at ESC.
And really, what we're trying to figure out is within this, all of those trials showed clinically significant lowering of blood pressure on multiple agents. And really, what we were trying to learn is if you're going to go into a very large outcome trial, you want to know how to power it, you want to know the right dose and you also want to know the right patient population to try. And so the data that we presented at ESC really gave us confidence of all 3 of those things, which patient population should you enrich for, which dose should you take? And then we're going to go on into an outcome trial with our partners at Roche.
When you think in terms of the fluctuations throughout the day, is that a function of often people just taking all their pills in these combinations in the morning and they're wearing off by the end of the day? Is it something that more appropriate management if they were taking some of their -- the pills in combination in the morning and some at night, that might lessen the magnitude of it?
I think it could if you could change human behavior potentially. I don't think it will take care of all of it, like the nocturnal dipping is not the same on some of the standard of care that's out there. But I have to say, even looking at our clinical trial where we were measuring whether patients coming in and the run-in were supposed to be on medications, but we weren't detecting the medications in the system, right? And so it's just -- as people get older, in particular, if you're on multiple medications, they just don't take the pills regularly. And so I think -- and because it is a disease of area under the curve, like every time you're not doing that, you're actually putting yourself at greater risk. And so I think that's part of the whole underlying hypothesis.
When talking about this with physicians who have been treating blood pressure for years, and they're used to this whole process of titrating, you titrate one drug up, add a second drug on, start titrating that up, then you might add a third on, titrating that up until you find it. And then you bring a therapy that titration isn't a thing. How do they -- what's their initial response to that? And how do they compare, number one -- one versus the other? And brainstorming, how that actually fits into their practice?
Yes. So I think as they get their head around it, the concept becomes, okay, well, I can use your drug to take the blood pressure down and hold it tonically and now I can use these other medications to do my little titration and sort of in a narrow band, push it up or down a little bit more as I want to. And I think that's how they start to think about it once they get their head around a novel mechanism.
And I know in this trial, actually, it was the hypotension rates were pretty much in line with placebo. In the trial itself, how does that actually get managed? In the event there is a situation, does the protocol actually have it for down titrating other therapies?
So you can either down-titrate other therapies. We've shown early in our Phase I is that you can use salt to rescue short term. And then behind this, we don't feel like we'll ever really need to use it, but we do have something called Reversir, which is another drug that can reverse the action of our current medication.
Got it. So let's talk about the pivotal with Roche. I know you certainly gave some outlines of it this past weekend. What would this study look like?
Yes. So we're looking at somewhere around 11,000 patients, I think it was...
Yes. That's the right number.
Yes. And we're looking at -- it's an event-driven trial. And so we'll be looking at MACE endpoints. It's a lot like other hypertension trials and cardiovascular outcome trials that have been out there.
And how long would it take?
It's event-driven. So it's hard to say an exact time frame.
I think a minimum 2-year follow-up, but we haven't...
Minimum of 2-year follow-up. Yes.
I think we've said approximately 2030 is what the expectation right now, but it will obviously depend on enrollment and then how quickly we accrue the events, but that's the best guess at this point.
We'll have to double check ours. So how large of an opportunity is this ultimately in your mind?
Yes. I think it's a big opportunity. I highlighted previously just the size of the opportunity even in a subset of the market, which is really what we're talking about is going into hypertension for patients with high CV risk. Even that part of the market is 60 million-plus patients in the 7 largest pharma markets around the world. So there's a significant opportunity here. I think given the size of the opportunity and what was going to be needed to be successful commercially, that was one of the main reasons a couple of years ago that we did the deal with Roche. We thought that we needed their experience and, frankly, in the buy-and-bill and a much broader sort of buy-and-bill market as well as their experience in launching highly innovative therapies into very competitive markets, right? I think they had a lot of success in the hemophilia market as an example. We thought that we would really benefit from their experience with this drug, and we do think it's a sizable opportunity.
So we have a little less than 10 minutes left, and I wanted to drift outside of the liver. For years, it's been about the liver.
We have a few more things coming in liver.
I know there's a lot of stuff in the liver, but there's also a lot of other stuff coming outside the liver that are kind of just starting to emerge. What is the nature of the challenge outside the liver? And what is the cadence of when we can actually -- I mean we already know there's some things going on. Certainly, we have mivelsiran and there are other areas. But what is the cadence of actually seeing more of these therapies come out?
Yes. So where we -- our first foray really outside the liver was into the central nervous system, where we have our protein that targets APP. That's amyloid precursor protein for Alzheimer's and also a disease called CAA, which is basically an Alzheimer's of the vascular system in the brain as you can think about it. And that drug is an IT injection every 6 months. We've seen really phenomenal knockdown, ED80s, ED90s of APP in CSF. And that program is continuing to go ahead in early onset Alzheimer's patients where we're measuring over time a bunch of different biomarkers, including Abeta 40 and 42, which are part of that disease. But separately, we've launched into a Phase II in this disease called CAA, where people get microbleeds to start with in their brain and then eventually strokes. It's probably a very underestimated cause of stroke and especially in elderly patients.
That trial actually has both a sporadic arm, but also there is a genetic population in the Netherlands where they have mutations in this protein called APP that we're knocking down. And those patients on 100% penetrant get this disease. So their family members all eventually succumb to stroke. And so they've been very well studied. And once you get 4 or 5 microbleeds, which you can see by imaging, every time you have a microbleed, you leave behind a little bit of iron that can show up on an MRI. And so you can follow these patients over time, and there's a couple of other biomarkers you can follow. And so what we're looking to do there is to really reduce the bleed rate over time in those patients. And so that's very exciting. That's an ongoing trial.
Behind that, we have our Huntington's program in the CNS, where we've targeted exon 1, which is sort of a unique strategy. We had a molecule that targeted just the full length, and we're happy we didn't take that forward as the biology has emerged a lot of -- we think that disease, especially as it progresses, there's these little peptides that come off and aggregate out of this thing called exon 1. So we're able to knock that down. That's an ongoing trial. And then behind that, we have our first program in adipose, which will be in the end of the year, targeting ACVR1C. We've shown an ED98 plus and a very long-acting adipose delivery. And then behind that, we have several different muscle programs that are coming along quite nicely as well as we also have a blood-brain technology that we've been working on actively.
What's the challenge when taking RNAi out of the liver? I mean it was in the people working on it for the liver for a long time. And -- so we know the liver very, very well, but how does it work? What's different with it?
So I think the beauty of RNAi is it does work in every cell. However, every cell is not the same. I mean every organ is not the same. So if you look at the liver, it's predominantly hepatocytes. There are a couple of other cell types, but the hepatocytes drive a lot of biology. As you get into certain other tissues like obviously, in the brain, there's a bunch of different cell types in the brain. And our delivery system actually hits most of the cell types in the brain on purpose because APP that I talked about, Huntington's, they're very broadly expressed.
Now we have some other programs where we'll be looking to hit specific cell types. And a lot of that is just engineering, getting the right ligand-receptor pair. And then there are certain cells that are just a little bit more amenable to RNAi versus others. And so a lot of it is the challenge that we've been tackling the 27 years I've been in it, which is delivery, right? How do you get specific delivery? How do you make sure it gets in the right part of the cell.
Towards that end, what learnings from the liver, it wasn't always smooth getting to delivering RNAi technologies. Obviously, the biggest headache in the early years of the technology was getting in there, see it stabilized. How does it vary from tissue to tissue? And what learnings you take from the earlier iterations into these new tissues?
So the good news is we don't have to reinvent everything. So a lot of the learnings about how you make a good molecule for one tissue hold true in other tissues, the longevity, depending on the half-life of the cells in that particular tissue, adipose is actually very long-lived cells. You have basically the same adipocytes for a very, very long time. There's not a lot of turnover, so you can expect very long action there. I think there are some other things that you learn as you go cell by cell, how much they tolerate in terms of off-target, how much you have to pay attention to the chemistry. So there are some tricks as you move from tissue to tissue. But a lot of what we've learned can also be applied.
So we got a couple of minutes left here. Any way we should think about the next couple of quarters in terms of beyond we've already -- you've already talked about in guidance as far as our expectations for growth.
Yes. I mean, I think certainly, there's still going to be a lot of focus on the quarterly results for AMVUTTRA and cardiomyopathy. So we're -- as I talked about earlier, what the commercial team is focused on is really continuing to drive positioning-wise, first-line demand, and we think we're going to get the second line that's going to come with that. But sort of watching how the demand figures look on a quarter-over-quarter basis, I think it's going to be a big focus for the investment community.
And then look, we upgraded the guidance pretty substantially on the Q2 call. So we're very focused on delivering on that. We know the importance of when we say we're going to do something that we need to follow through and make sure that happens. So commercially, those are the things that we're very focused on right now to continue to drive strong performance through the balance of the year and have us in a strong position to start next year as well. People will start to look at their models for '26 soon as well.
Yes. Indeed, we are. Thank you so much for visiting us today. Appreciate it as you know long drive from Cambridge and look forward to chatting in soon.
Thanks, Dave.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Special Call - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
1. Management Discussion
Hello, everybody, and thank you for joining us. Thanks so much for those of you who are here in the room in Madrid, I made the trip out to ESC and to many colleagues around the world, including those in the U.S. who are celebrating the Labor Day holiday.
We really appreciate everyone being here for what's a pretty exciting milestone event, which is the announcement of the KARDIA-3 results and really the kickoff with Alnylam in Roche of a Phase III cardiovascular outcome study for zilebesiran. We're really excited about this because as you're going to hear this afternoon or this evening, we're really excited about the potential for zilebesiran to address one of the most stubborn and intractable health problems that's out there, a public health problem, which is uncontrolled hypertension, which is really the #1 addressable cause of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. And as you'll hear, cardiovascular disease is the #1 killer of people around the world.
So we're going to spend some time talking about that today. I've got some wonderful colleagues here to help facilitate the discussion. I'm going to start with just a little bit of an introduction. We're joined by Professor Bryan Williams from the University College of London, who's going to talk to you about the global burden of cardiovascular disease and why zilebesiran may be prone to be able to address some of the major determinants of why we've not been able to control hypertension as well as we'd like to.
Then Dr. Neha Pagidipati from Duke University, who presented in the hotline session at ESC today, is going to come up and reprise her presentation and provide a little bit of additional data talking about the KARDIA-3 results and put them in some context. My colleague, Simon Fox, who leads the zilebesiran program at Alnylam, will provide the perspective on the opportunity here. And then Dr. Manu Chakravarthy from our partner at Roche, will give a partner perspective, and we'll come back and have a short period of Q&A.
So we expect the prepared remarks to be about 30 minutes or so, and then we'll launch into Q&A, both from people in the room and on the webcast. These are our forward-looking statements. What I want to show you in the next couple of moments is really what's turned out to be a really remarkable pipeline of therapeutics based on RNA interference. And in particular, how well suited these drugs are for treating a number of factors that sort of contribute to cardiovascular disease and the portfolio now, a number of very transformational or potentially transformational agents that can address major causes of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.
As you all have seen us present before, we've been working for 23 years on developing RNAi therapeutics. And it's a really unique class of medicines with a very, very remarkable pharmacology. We're able to silence any gene in the genome, work upstream of today's medicines, a catalytic mechanism that allows for highly potent medicines that are also highly specific and reversible and importantly, allow us to have infrequent administration once a quarter, once every 6 months or annually. And we think that is really important in addressing many of these chronic diseases.
With this technology, we've built really a pipeline that's the envy of the industry across a range of diseases. We have 6 marketed products across both rare and prevalent conditions. And as I said, a number of these really point this technology towards major determinants of cardiovascular health. You're familiar with Leqvio, which is approved for hypercholesterolemia and is now in two large outcome studies being run by Novartis.
We had the recent approval of AMVUTTRA in ATTR cardiomyopathy. We're going to be talking about zilebesiran for most of this session. And we have early programs in type 2 diabetes and in obesity.
Just one moment on AMVUTTRA, just that you can see the power of this technology in terms of being able to work upstream at knocking down or silencing the disease-causing protein. In this case, TTR resulted in really spectacular results, about a 35% reduction in all-cause mortality, concordant benefits on a whole number of other endpoints. This has now been approved in multiple geographies around the world. And we've had the launch in the United States, which is the first quarter has been quite good with 1,400 patients already on therapy and new results being presented at the ESC talking about extended survival data for HELIOS-B that are being presented at this Congress.
But what we're here to talk about is zilebesiran. And the reason we're so excited about this is that we think it really gives us an opportunity to address some of the major things that small molecule or daily drugs can't really address, helping more patients get to goal in terms of the quantity of blood pressure, but also the quality of blood pressure control, reducing blood pressure variability, improving adherence and improving nocturnal dipping. And Dr. Williams is going to talk to you about why we think all of those matter.
This summarizes the zilebesiran clinical development program. You can see the Phase II studies, we've had three of them now that have all now IV studies actually, including the Phase I that have all shown repeatedly really impressive effects of zilebesiran in terms of reducing blood pressure.
And in KARDIA-1 as a monotherapy and KARDIA-2 with a single other agent. And now in KARDIA-3, Dr. Pagidipati will talk to you about how it performed on top of 2 other agents -- 2 or 3 other agents in a high-risk population. And we are going to be announcing today that we're kicking off a cardiovascular outcome study to study the impact of this mechanism and this approach of continuous control on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.
So with that, I'm going to invite Dr. Williams to come up and talk to you about the burden of cardiovascular disease. Yes, right here.
Hi, everybody. So I'm Bryan Williams from London and been presenting at the meeting today. I just wanted to put some of this stuff in context because cardiovascular disease remains the single most important preventable cause of death globally. And currently, about 20 million people die every year from cardiovascular disease. And the tragedy is it's largely preventable. And if we look at the major cause for that, it's high blood pressure. High blood pressure is the most important preventable cause of death globally, accounting for about half of all cardiovascular deaths. That's now -- and this is a projection from the Lancet published just before the pandemic, which suggested that -- the risk factors contributing to loss of life, number one, will remain by 2040 high blood pressure. So we have to take this seriously. There's already a sort of scramble of new activity in this space over recent years.
If we look at the ability to control blood pressure at the moment, this is from really many of the better developed health care systems in the world. Less than 40% of women and less than 30% of men -- about 30% of men actually get their blood pressure control to a level below 140 over 90. Now the important thing about that is these are terrible control rates below 140/90, but guidelines now advocate even more aggressive therapy. So all of the guidelines are now suggesting to optimize treatment, we need to get blood pressure below 130/80.
So there's a huge treatment gap between what is expected and what is being delivered by current therapeutics. So can we do more to improve blood pressure control? I think we have to do something more. I think we've got to try and do better than we're doing at the moment. So just quickly, the elements of things that we're interested in, and Pang as mentioned this at the beginning, blood pressure levels achieved in the clinic is how we traditionally monitor blood pressure.
But actually, the levels over 24 hours are very important. The control of nighttime blood pressure is very important. Speed to control is very important. And increasingly, we're recognizing the consistency of blood pressure control is very important. And that's why I personally got very interested in this drug, having worked in hypertension for 30-odd years. And this is pretty novel or very novel and pretty unique in terms of its mechanism of action.
Let me just show you some data we got from a massive study we did on ABPM, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring nearly 60,000 patients. We published in the Lancet a couple of years ago. We're trying to work out which blood pressure is actually the one that we should be most concerned about in terms of measurement. And in the blue, you can see a straight-line relationship very steep. That's the relationship between nighttime blood pressure and risk of death. What we found was that it's nighttime blood pressure that is very powerful predictor of risk of death. And so what you need is something that will control blood pressure, not just when they're in the doctor's office, not just in sporadic moments, but on a consistent basis over a long period of time.
And to show you how powerful that effect was, if you look at clinic blood pressure, say that's 100%, 24-hour systolic blood pressure average over 24 hours, that was 4.7x more predictive of risk of death. Daytime, 3.8x more predictive, nighttime almost 6x more predictive. So we've got to control all of these. And at the moment, we've got a lot of fluctuation in treatment. Some of the drugs are not achieving that.
The second thing that we discovered back in early 2000s was the variability in your blood pressure, either minute to minute, hour to hour or even week-to-week. All of those parameters have an independent predictive value of risk of premature death and stroke. And so all of this points to the fact that we've got to try and control and smooth blood pressure control if we're to optimize patients' risk. And this is an example for a paper we published very recently on blood pressure variability and risk of death. Every single measurement that we make of how variable blood pressure is, was highly predictive independently of blood pressure itself of risk of death.
Finally, just to show you what this phenomenon of persistence of control being important. This, I think, is some data which convinced me that this is a really powerful issue. And it comes from the U.K., but it actually is a typical U.K. study because it involves over 1 million patients. And what we looked at here is the time the patients spent in control, going to their doctor, getting their blood pressure checked, we checked to see was it controlled every time they went, we gave a figure of up to 80% of the time. Or was it controlled only 50% of the time or only 20% of the time. The results were astonishing. That actually, if you happen to be controlled 80% of the time, your risk of cardiovascular death or MI or stroke was reduced by 75% compared to those who had less good control. And this is real-world stuff. This is what's happening out there in millions of patients in the clinic.
All-cause death was reduced by half if you had consistent blood pressure control. And to put that into context, one of the big studies in the United States, which had a huge impact on guideline was called the SPRINT trial. And that tried to get blood pressure below 120. So the argument there was if we've got to improve outcome, we've just got to keep going lower. And for people like me who treat these patients, I think we can't go lower. We can't even get to where we need to be now. And what they found is if they went below 120, they got a 25% reduction in cardiovascular death.
Well, we got a 75% reduction in cardiovascular death by going below 140, but doing it on a consistent basis. So the message here is that we need treatments that produce smooth and consistent blood pressure control. Now the final issue -- so I think the fact that zilebesiran has the ability to have a single injection, and it's done, job done always on 6 months. That is hugely important in my view and will be important in a clinical trial. The final issue that will be important is adherence. This is the WHO. They say that treatment of chronic diseases worldwide is a massive issue in relation to the adherence to treatment.
Now hypertension is an asymptomatic condition. It's even harder to encourage people to take medication. So adherence is really bad. And what we find is about 40% of patients don't take some or all of their medication. I'll skip through that.
So this idea that you can give an injection and guarantee adherence to therapy for at least 6 months from a single injection, I think, is really powerful and is often underappreciated as a real novel breakthrough. This morning, I was talking about how new drugs might improve blood pressure control. And one of the things that I emphasize is that we need drugs with a long duration of action to overcome adherence problems. And actually, 6 months is a pretty long duration of action and nothing comes close to it. So that's quite exciting.
So in conclusion, I think we have to improve blood pressure control, not just the numbers in the clinic, but the quality of control, the consistency of control over time. There is a great unmet need for treatments that are always on. We don't have any. And this will be, I think, a major advantage in hypertension and to reduce blood pressure smoothly and consistently over prolonged periods to reduce variability and to overcome major problems with treatment adherence.
So I'll hand back. But from my point of view, this is a completely novel therapeutic in the field of hypertension.
Thank you, Dr. Williams. So I'm Neha Pagidipati. I'm a preventive cardiologist at Duke, and I was very privileged to share these results of KARDIA-3 earlier today at ESC. So just for a quick background, and you saw a little bit of this before, the Phase II zilebesiran development program has 3 trials in it, KARDIA-1 KARDIA-2, KARDIA-3, which I'll present to you today.
KARDIA-1 tested zilebesiran as monotherapy in individuals with mild to moderate hypertension and showed a significant blood pressure lowering as monotherapy on the order of 15 millimeters of mercury for 24-hour mean systolic blood pressure. And what you can see in the graph here is that it really is just like what Dr. Williams said, continuous control through the daytime, through the nighttime, continuous control.
Then KARDIA -2, which was the second Phase II study, tested zilebesiran on top of a single antihypertensive agent. Now patients had a run-in and then they were assigned either indapamide, amlodipine or olmesartan and a high dose of olmesartan, 40 milligrams. And what we saw was a significant blood pressure lowering in each of these arms. It was on the order in the office systolic blood pressure of minus 19 millimeters of mercury on top of a diuretic, minus 10 on top of amlodipine and minus 7 on top of olmesartan, which has really never been shown before. Dual Ras Blockade has never been shown to be efficacious or safe before. So that was all very exciting.
And now the study objective of KARDIA-3 was to determine the efficacy, safety and optimal dosing of zilebesiran among individuals with uncontrolled hypertension and high cardiovascular risk with or without chronic kidney disease in order to inform the design of the cardiovascular outcomes trial. KARDIA-3 was a Phase II randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in 5 countries, and it included patients with established cardiovascular disease or at high risk for cardiovascular disease. Uncontrolled hypertension is seen here and who were already prescribed 2 to 4 antihypertensive agents, including a diuretic or a calcium channel blocker.
This was the study design. There are 2 cohorts, and I'm presenting today to Cohort A, which included patients with an eGFR of greater than or equal to 45 and Cohort B, which we'll present in the future, included patients with more advanced kidney disease. In Cohort A at baseline, patients were randomized to 1 of 3 arms, a single dose of zilebesiran 300 milligrams, 600 milligrams or placebo at baseline, and then they were followed for 6 months.
The randomization was stratified by factors that we a priori thought would impact the effectiveness of zilebesiran, which included race, baseline blood pressure and baseline diuretic use. And patients and clinicians in the first 3 months were encouraged not to change their antihypertensive therapy unless clinically indicated. And then the primary outcome was at 3 months. It was changed from baseline to month 3 and mean office systolic blood pressure. And you can see several of the secondary and exploratory outcomes here.
Now to account for multiplicity of looking at multiple doses, if both doses did not have a p-value of less than 0.05, then any single dose needed to have a p-value of less than 0.025 in order to meet statistical significance. These are the baseline demographics of Cohort A. And in the 270 patients, the mean age was in the mid-60s, and this was an appropriately diverse cohort with good representation of females, blacks and Hispanic individuals. And about 20% had a prior cardiovascular event and half had diabetes.
The baseline blood pressure, the mean systolic blood pressure was 143 to 144 and the mean diastolic blood pressure was in the 80s. The mean 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure was in a similar range. These are the baseline blood pressure medications that patients were on. And as you can see here, the vast majority, over 90% were on ACE or ARB therapy at baseline. About 2/3 were on a diuretic and over half were on a calcium channel blocker.
In terms of the number of oral antihypertensives, about half were on two therapies, about 1/3 were on 3 and the minority were on 4. And these are the results of Cohort A. At month 3, the placebo group had a decrease in systolic blood pressure of 7.3 millimeters of mercury. The zilebesiran group, 300-milligram group had a decrease of 12.3 and the 600-milligram group had a decrease of 10.6, resulting in a placebo-adjusted change of minus 5 in the 300-milligram group and minus 3.3 in the 600-milligram group. And after adjusting for multiplicity, these p-values did not meet statistical significance.
In terms of the secondary outcome of office systolic blood pressure at month 6, the placebo-adjusted changes were minus 3.9 and minus 3.6 in the 300 and 600-milligram arms, respectively. And for the secondary outcome of 24-hour mean ambulatory systolic blood pressure at month 3, the placebo-adjusted change was minus 3.6 and minus 2.6 in the 300 and 600-milligram arms. And at month 6, those changes were minus 5.5 and minus 7.4.
This slide shows the mean daytime and nighttime ambulatory systolic blood pressure at month 6. And what you can see here is that in the daytime, the placebo-adjusted change in the 300-milligram group was minus 4.9, and it was minus 6.9 in the 600-milligram group. And those corresponding values were numerically greater at nighttime at minus 6.6 and minus 8.2.
Now these are some data of the biomarkers that were tested, and that includes NT-proBNP, which many of you may know is related to heart failure and heart failure risk as well as urine albumin to creatinine ratio, which is related to kidney disease, but also a very strong predictor of future cardiovascular disease. And in patients with a somewhat elevated level of NT-proBNP at baseline, just greater than 12 picomoles per liter, you saw on average, 21% and 26% reduction, which is quite impressive in the 300 and 600-milligram arms.
And for the UACR, you saw reductions in the 37% and 32% range with the 300 and 600-milligram doses. The safety profile was, I would say, encouraging overall. There were very few serious adverse events, and they were generally comparable between arms and most of the instances of hyperkalemia and worsening kidney function were not confirmed by subsequent measurement and none of them required dialysis or hospitalization.
Now as I mentioned, one of the primary purposes of KARDIA-3 was to identify who is most likely to benefit from zilebesiran in order to optimally design the Phase III outcomes trial. And we knew from KARDIA-2 that zilebesiran appears to be most effective in individuals who are on a diuretic therapy, possibly because when you're on a diuretic therapy, your RAS system is upregulated. And so in a prespecified subgroup of KARDIA-3 in those on a diuretic at baseline, the placebo-adjusted change at 3 months was minus 6.6 with the 300-milligram arm and minus 5.1 with the 600-milligram arm.
And then if we further look at individuals who are on diuretic therapy, but who are truly hypertensive at baseline with a systolic above or equal to 140, in a post-hoc analysis, you can see a placebo-adjusted change of minus 9.2 or minus 7.0 with the 300 and 600-milligram doses, respectively.
So in conclusion, among individuals with cardiovascular disease or high cardiovascular risk who have uncontrolled hypertension on multiple antihypertensives, single doses of zilebesiran 300 or 600 led to respective 5 and 3.3 millimeter mercury reductions in office systolic blood pressure at 3 months compared with placebo. And this was not -- statistical significance was not reached. However, subgroup analyses did suggest that those on a diuretic may experience greater blood pressure lowering with zilebesiran. And we saw an acceptable safety profile with low rates of hyperkalemia, kidney dysfunction and hypotension, consistent with the findings from prior studies.
And we're very excited to announce the ZENITH trial, which will evaluate the impact of this novel, long-acting therapy on cardiovascular outcomes in patients with hypertension and established cardiovascular disease or high risk.
Thank you very much. And now for Simon.
Thanks, Dr. Pagidipati, and congratulations on a great presentation and a well-executed trial. Hi, everyone. I'm Simon Fox. I'm the program leader at zilebesiran, and it's my pleasure to be talking to you about the patient opportunity and the next steps for the zilebesiran program.
As Bryan said, it's become increasingly obvious that hypertension is a public health care crisis. It's become well known that even today with the numerous classes of antihypertensives, there are tens of millions of patients with uncontrolled hypertension. Of the 219 million patients that have hypertension across the 7 major markets, 77 million of these patients also have high cardiovascular risk and up to 62 million of these patients are currently uncontrolled. Now these patients with uncontrolled hypertension and high cardiovascular risk have the greatest unmet need. And these patients have comorbidities like diabetes, CKD and established cardiovascular disease.
Now moving on to the potential we see in zilebesiran. Dr. Pagidipati presented the findings of the KARDIA-3 study, and we clearly saw an enhanced response in a subgroup of interest. And these benefits seen were both blood pressure reductions and benefits beyond blood pressure control.
So putting this into context when reviewing the literature of the various independent risk factors, it's well known that reductions in daytime systolic blood pressure of 5 to 10 millimeters of mercury can result in significant reduction in cardiovascular risk. And we know that nighttime blood pressure is very important. A small additional nighttime blood pressure reduction of around about 1 to 2 millimeters of mercury could result in a risk reduction of cardiovascular death of 1% to 2%.
In addition to this, improvements in things like NT-proBNP and UACR can also have additional cardiovascular risk reduction benefits. And finally, improving blood pressure variability over the long term can also help further reduce cardiovascular risk.
In conclusion, given zilebesiran's emerging profile, which is exhibiting attributes like sustained daytime and nighttime blood pressure reductions as well as observed effects beyond blood pressure control, we believe this will have cumulative benefit over time, and therefore, zilebesiran has the potential to improve outcomes for the patients with the highest unmet need.
Now it's my pleasure to be presenting to you our Phase III pivotal trial design, which is named ZENITH. ZENITH will enroll a total of 11,000 patients. The patients to be enrolled will be the KARDIA-3-like patient population, as mentioned, previously uncontrolled hypertension with either established cardiovascular disease or at high risk of developing cardiovascular disease, including patients both with preserved and impaired renal function. Now these patients will have a baseline office systolic blood pressure of equal to or greater than 140 millimeters of mercury on stable treatment of 2 or more background antihypertensives and one of which will have to be a diuretic.
It will be an event-driven trial, and the primary composite endpoint will be a 4-point MACE, which is nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke and cardiovascular death as well as hospitalization for heart failure or urgent heart failure visits, and it will be comparing zilebesiran 300 milligrams to placebo. The trial will have a minimum follow-up of 2 years, and we've already engaged with regulators to seek advice on the specific of the trial design and the target indication. And the conversations have been extremely helpful.
And now with the KARDIA-3 data in hand, we have finalized the ZENITH protocol. Both Alnylam and our partners at Roche are thrilled to be initiating the global multicentered cardiovascular outcomes trial, ZENITH. We have already filed ZENITH protocol with multiple regulators to date, and we look to complete these filings by the end of next year. We are planning to activate our first sites in the coming weeks with first patient first dose planned before the end of the year.
ZENITH will have a global footprint, enrolling patients from approximately 35 countries across the major regions to ensure the trial reflects a real-world population and a real-world clinical practice. I just wanted to highlight that the global footprint of ZENITH illustrates Alnylam and Roche's commitment to developing innovative treatments for cardiovascular disease as well as our global aspirations for zilebesiran.
So what's next for Alnylam and Roche? Our immediate focus operationally will be to initiate and expedite enrollment of our cardiovascular outcomes trial through our clinical operation capabilities as well as our medical affairs capabilities. Once the trial initiates, the medical affairs team will be delivering medical education and scientific engagement.
Organizationally, we'll be looking to shape our go-to-market strategies as well as developing an understanding of the organizational capabilities and resources to successfully commercialize zilebesiran. We'll also be continuing to develop REVERSIR, which will further demonstrate the capabilities of our RNAi platform.
We've made a very choiceful key strategic choice to evolve our manufacturing capabilities to reduce COGS, given that zilebesiran will be targeting a prevalent disease such as hypertension and given our aspirations to commercialize zilebesiran globally.
And finally, the team at Alnylam and Roche are assessing the potential to develop zilebesiran for additional indications.
To conclude, Alnylam and Roche fully believe in the potential value zilebesiran has to offer and how we unlock this value is generating the most robust data to optimize the zilebesiran value proposition. Generating cardiovascular outcomes data will ensure favorable guideline positioning and demonstrate the value to health care systems.
We believe for HCPs that cardiovascular outcomes data, coupled with the ability to achieve continuous control of blood pressure safely with infrequent dosing will potentially drive rapid uptake and differentiate zilebesiran. And finally, generating this data will also drive confidence and preference amongst patients.
And with that, I'm going to hand over to our partner at Roche, Manu Chakravarthy.
Thank you, Simon. Really delighted to be joining you all from Boston. Firstly, I want to just thank our Alnylam colleagues for organizing this event. So thank you for that. On behalf of Roche, let me first express a deep gratitude to the patients who actually participated in the whole KARDIA program because without their partnership and volunteering for being in this trial, we wouldn't really have the privilege here to stand before you to share these very exciting results that you heard today. So thank you to that as well.
So from our perspective, the whole KARDIA program, particularly KARDIA-3, really represents a paradigm shift. And really in the way that we think about zilebesiran is a fundamentally new way to treat chronic disease. It's a differentiated approach to lower blood pressure and to improve cardiovascular outcomes.
You've already heard from Dr. Williams about the importance of blood pressure and adherence, but I want to echo those two points and add a couple of important additions to that, which is really the fact that one of our excitement for this program really resides in the fact that with a single injection, we're able to actually sustain blood pressure lowering for over 6 months. At least to the best of our knowledge, we're not aware of any drug that at this stage of development that can do that. And you've heard how singularly important blood pressure is as the most important predictor of outcomes, if you will. So even a 5-millimeter drop in mercury can potentially translate to about a 10% relative risk reduction in major cardiovascular outcome events.
The second point that I think it's totally worth emphasizing because we don't really think about it too much, but in the setting of chronic disease, it's very important, which is adherence. So in the large meta-analysis that Dr. Williams referred to. And when we looked at it a little bit more carefully to look at what the numbers are, it was quite -- at least to me, it was quite striking that for every 1% improvement in adherence, you could actually reduce cardiovascular event rates by another additional 13%.
So when you put these two things together, sustained prolonged reductions in blood pressure, especially the reduction in nighttime blood pressure, along with this improved adherence, we believe that we are well poised to really see a very strong impact on cardiovascular outcome benefits when we actually run the ZENITH trial. So that's ultimately the reason why we are also equally excited with our partner, Alnylam, to stand behind them to execute this trial because ultimately, as clinicians and as physicians and as public health stewards, if you will, what matters most to patients is not just the lowering of blood pressure, but ultimately, the changing of the trajectory of their health and an outcomes trial can ultimately prove that.
And the final point I want to leave you with is that we see zilebesiran as a cornerstone of our growing cardiovascular, renal and metabolic portfolio that you can see here on this slide as well. At Roche, we now have one of the broadest CVRM portfolios, which gives us the optionality, the ability to address unmet needs across a range of patient segments and importantly, allows us to think about very unique combination approaches.
So potentially down the road, in [indiscernible] zilebesiran in combination or other combinations that we may not yet have thought about could be all conceivable. And ultimately, delivering medicines that can have the transformational impact in cardiovascular disease is really the crux of the priority at Roche. So overall, just for me, personally, this is just the beginning, I feel, and we couldn't be more energized to see what comes ahead.
So with that, let me say big thanks again and hand it off to Pushkal to bring us home with closing remarks.
Fantastic. Thank you, Manu. Really appreciate you dialing in and those comments and perspectives from Roche. We're really delighted to be partnering with your whole company. The collaboration has been going extraordinarily well. I'm going to close quickly with just some of the keys to success.
Look, we couldn't be more excited. I hope you've picked up on that. This is another program that's really a product of our disciplined R&D strategy, where we really pursued with our sustainable innovation engine, diseases where we have high biologic conviction, high morbidity and mortality and the potential to halt or reverse disease be best-in-class. And you see, hopefully, from what everything we've spoken about today that we really believe that zilebesiran can be a paradigm-shifting therapy for patients with hypertension. This is an opportunity to rewrite how blood pressure is managed around the world and maybe even bend the curve on cardiovascular disease.
And so we, our partners at Roche, and you've seen our academic collaborators and experts really have a strong level of conviction about this that we can really potentially have a substantial impact on this disease. So hopefully, you picked up on that confidence. We're going to now switch over to Q&A. So I'm going to invite my colleagues to come on up, and we'll be able to take some questions from the room and on the webcast.
We're actually happy to start in the room if anyone who's joining us live would like to ask anything. Great.
2. Question Answer
Eliana Merle, UBS. Can you elaborate a little bit on why you think you see a synergistic effect with the diuretics and then also your expectations for the proportion of patients on the ZENITH trial that will be on diuretics as well?
Great. So Ellie's question was about the rationale for the synergies potentially between zilebesiran's mechanism of action and diuretic and whether that will -- how that might affect recruitment in the context of Phase III. So Neha, maybe you want to start to address. And Bryan, you may also have some comments there.
Sure. Yes, it's a great question. I think part of the first question that you asked was around the rationale for why we might see this kind of synergistic or complementary effect. And my -- I think that it has to do with the fact that when a patient is on a diuretic, their volume contracts and their blood pressure goes down, and that actually upregulates the RAS system. And the precursor for the entire RAS system is angiotensinogen, which is what zilebesiran is working on. So you're essentially increasing the substrate for zilebesiran to do its job. And so I think that's probably the most likely reason that we're seeing that kind of synergistic effect that we saw both in K2 and K3.
In terms of the proportion of patients who will be on it in the cardiovascular trial and the outcomes trial, it will be everybody because we're going to require that patients are on a diuretic because we think we'll see the greatest benefit in those patients. I actually don't think it's going to make it harder to recruit for the trial because even though there is some geographic variation in diuretic use, it is probably the single most well-used antihypertensive globally. It is very well available and in most guidelines is a Class I indication. So I actually don't expect it to be difficult to recruit.
Thanks, Neha. Bryan, anything to add?
Yes. I mean, I think we've known for years that if you use a single drug, it often gets counteracted by another mechanism. And so as Neha said, if you try and offload sodium and water, which is what diuretics do, you activate the reading system, which limits the effectiveness of the diuretic. So if you can block the renal system, what you're doing is you're pulling out more -- even more effectiveness from that strategy.
The other thing I would add actually is that as you move into more complex patients with -- who are often on multiple drugs and they've got underlying cardiovascular or kidney disease, you almost invariably need a diuretic as part of treatment because all of those conditions and aging are associated with increased sodium retention. So I think it's not a bad idea anyway for those patients to be on a diuretic. They probably should be on a diuretic if they're hypertensive. And then zilebesiran on top. So I'm very confident that combination will produce a much more robust and consistent response across the patient population that's going to be studied.
Makes sense. Can I ask another question. There were some comments when the presentation was made in terms of interpreting the results in the context of KARDIA-1 and 2 about how there was maybe sizable proportion of patients between screening and randomization that no longer had hypertension. Could you just elaborate on those comments a little bit and how we should interpret these results in that context?
Yes. So Ellie's question was really about understanding sort of the treatment effect that we observed here versus, for example, in KARDIA-2, where we were somewhat more sizable. And I think probably there's a couple of points that I can start with, and then I can ask Neha to follow up, right? In the KARDIA-2 program, obviously, it was a somewhat milder population without sort of the severity of cardiovascular disease. But importantly -- so -- and also being used in earlier line of therapy but probably the most important factor was that actually there was a run-in period that was incorporated into that study to ensure what baseline blood pressure was as patients entered into the study. So you may want to speak a little bit more about what we observed in KARDIA-3 relative to KARDIA-2 around baseline blood pressure, et cetera, that may have predicted that.
Sure. Absolutely. So that's exactly right. And obviously, in KARDIA-2, there was a run-in period. And here, for the purposes of being more generalizable and applicable to the cardiovascular outcomes trial, there was not a run-in. And what we saw was that for inclusion, patients had to have a systolic blood pressure greater than or equal to 140 at screening. Then there was a screening period during which they had their ambulatory blood pressure monitored, then they returned for their baseline visit and got randomized. At that time, when they return for their baseline visit and at the time of randomization, about 40% of them no longer had a systolic blood pressure greater than 140, but they were still included in the trial. And then about 25% didn't have a systolic blood pressure above 135. Anytime you take a population that isn't truly hypertensive, it is that much harder to show an antihypertensive effect. And so I think that clearly had something to do with the differences between the two trials.
So an important -- this was an important learning for us as we kind of go into the cardiovascular outcome study. And so one of the refinements that we've made working with the investigators is to ensure that patients have an elevated blood pressure at screening. But then at the time of randomization, it has to be confirmed that they have an elevated blood pressure. So with that extra precaution, we're confident now that we'll be enrolling patients in this longer-term CVOT who've got elevated blood pressure at the time that they get randomized to drug or placebo.
Let's hop over to the webcast. We have a number of questions that have come in already. So one of them is around K3 baseline characteristics. The percent of patients with previous CV event or CVD history in the 300 mg cohort has almost doubled compared to the 600 mg. Do you think this difference has any potential impact on the results?
So maybe, Neha, you can speak to that. But look -- the question is really about the 300 and 600 milligrams and whether any of the baseline characteristics may have led to why we didn't see more of a dose response between those 2.
Yes, it's a great question. I'm eager to hear what Dr. Williams thinks as well. There were some -- it is a relatively small Phase II study. And so there will be some imbalances in randomization, and that's one of the areas where we saw some of the imbalance. I'm not sure that, that necessarily contributed to the results. It is helpful to understand what the risk of the underlying population is. But in general, it was a pretty homogenously high-risk population across all of the arms. So I'm not sure the small kind of variations that we saw in the Table 1 and in the baseline demographics really contributed all that much. But I don't know if Dr. Williams or Simon has other thoughts.
No. I mean -- and also, it's quite difficult to do between dose comparisons in relatively modestly sized studies. I mean generally, we don't do that. We're looking to see whether there's an effect, but it's often not powered to try and actually detect an effect. I was just going to add to the first point. I mean, trials are difficult. And sometimes you get a perfect patient population and sometimes some of the patients in the trial are not quite what you wanted in terms of the way they behave. And you can't really control that very easily, and that's just the nature of what we do.
I'm pretty confident when you go into a large-scale outcome trial that those kind of things become less important because, first of all, the scale, there's a huge number of patients involved. Secondly, the duration. And if you've got a treatment that they're going to be getting on a 6-monthly basis that is going to guarantee that there's going to be an element of blood pressure control. Even if they don't take all their other medicines, the blood pressure and the blockade of the renal system in that population is always going to be superior to the placebo because we have to accept that the background medicines will get messed about with by the patients and sometimes by their doctors. I mean that's just the nature of trying to do something over a 3-, 4-, 5-year period.
So I wouldn't get too hung up on the KARDIA-3 side of things. You've got two very good trials, KARDIA-1, KARDIA 2. KARDIA-2 studies, which are just spectacular results. And there's no reason to sort of push that aside because of the sort of challenges around some of the patients recruited into this particular study.
That's very helpful, Bryan. And I think that's our belief, right, that the real benefits of what we're trying to do is going to be in outcomes. And that's where over 3, 4 years, we're going to be starting to see these substantial benefits. Every bit of science that we have in epidemiology that Bryan covered really well suggests all these benefits should come together really in accrue and maybe in somewhat of an additive or synergistic effect to result in outsized outcomes benefits. And that's what we're all super excited about.
I'll just add one more point on the dose response, which is I think when if you look at all the data that we've accumulated over time, the 300 and 600-milligram arms have actually performed reasonably similarly across studies. They actually both give us very high levels of AGT silencing, about 95%. And so it's not really too surprising that we didn't see a difference, but we certainly wanted to make sure before we kick off this very large study that we've picked the correct dose. And so we're very convinced that 300 milligrams, which is a single injection every 6 months is the right dose to pursue in the cardiovascular outcome study.
Yes, sounds great. How is the efficacy in KARDIA-3 in the population that was on background angiotenosin 2 receptor blockers. Was there different efficacy in that group as in KARDIA-2?
Yes. So maybe I can -- the question was really about how is the efficacy on patients who are basically on another RAS inhibitor, either an angiotensin receptor blocker or an ACE inhibitor. In this case, 90% of the patients, so pretty much the entire study population was on an ACE or an ARB. And so the efficacy that you're seeing both in the overall population as well as in the enriched subgroup that Neha talked about, that's the target for the cardiovascular outcome study are already being treated with a RAS inhibitor. And I think that's actually pretty remarkable as well if you think about the prior history of combined RAS blockade where I think the effect sizes actually in those settings have been quite small. And Bryan is nodding in no. So maybe, Bryan, you want to speak to that a little bit as well as the safety. So...
Yes, I would agree with you, actually. I think when you combine the drugs, as you have done, I was surprised initially because I think as a clinician, I kind of believe that we had blocked the system at the receptor level with angiotensin receptor blockers. And clearly, we haven't blocked it completely because we're seeing breakthrough in terms of the ability of this drug to take blood pressure further.
So it's certainly adding to the existing level of RAS blockade. I guess in the future, what will happen is if this drug is as successful as many people think it will be, it will replace these drugs. People won't need to take an ARB on a RAS blocker on a consistent basis. They will just use this drug to block their renal system. So to some extent, the main issue about dual blockade is about the concern initially about whether there would be a hazard [indiscernible] because there has been a hazard in the past with ACE inhibitor and ARBs together. But fortunately, that hasn't been seen.
That's right. Thank you.
And we actually have a question for our colleagues at Roche with Manu. So what excites Roche about zilebesiran within the context of your broader CV portfolio? And maybe more specifically, what about this data gives the conviction to advance to a global outcome study?
Manu, did you hear that question?
Also do you want me to repeat the question?
No, no, I just want to make sure you heard the question. It sounds like you did. So please go ahead.
Yes. Yes. So the question was really about what excites us about the data overall and convinces us to go forward with the large outcome study. We asked that question, obviously, quite a bit as well. So I think there are several things. I think some of them I touched on in my remarks, but happy to sort of reiterate a couple of them.
The first is really the magnitude of the blood pressure response in the population that has been very nicely outlined as the population of interest. It's the high-risk population. It's people that are on at least one single RAS agent and then they'll all be on diuretics. This is the key population at risk. And so we feel very confident based on the data that we saw, 9 millimeters of mercury reduction in that population with all the things that we would want to see, sustained lowering, nighttime lowering, both office and ambulatory lowering.
So there is lots of different things that are all highly consistent. And then the final piece is, of course, the biomarkers, too. I know that we don't over-index on it right now, recognizing it's a small study. It's obviously biomarkers, et cetera, but those biomarkers are actually really, really highly predictive. So NT-proBNP and UACR, really well-established biomarkers, almost as good as blood pressure to some extent in predicting cardiovascular risk.
So when you take the totality of the whole data set, along with the big question of adherence, which I alluded to as well as Dr. Williams alluded to, to us, that over a long period of time, will accumulate to provide that type of benefit that we anticipate roughly around the 15% to 20% relative risk reduction range, which is going to be highly meaningful from a patient perspective and a value-generating perspective. So that's the gist of why we felt very confident and very excited about the data that we saw.
I think your second question was about how does this fit into the Roche portfolio. So hopefully, I showed and alluded to that on my slide as well. But again, to emphasize, we've always approached cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases as one continuum, right? Because it's a very common underlying pathophysiology for many of these diseases. And so we are -- what we're trying to do here is to change the fundamental risk profile.
So in this case, blood pressure, in the case of diabetes, it's blood sugar. In the case of other things, it's lipids, et cetera. So we're really going after fundamental pathophysiological perturbations that we can modify in a meaningful way. And so zilebesiran really fits squarely into that way that we approach addressing chronic disease. And as I alluded to before, it also lets us the -- gives us the optionality for potential combinations down the road and to also explore other indications beyond just reduction of major cardiovascular risk events.
Thanks, Manu.
So let's stay on ZENITH for a moment. A question here about with 11,000 patients planned for ZENITH, what percent power is that to detect a 15% reduction in MACE and how about a 20% reduction in MACE?
Yes. So maybe I can speak to that. ZENITH is going to be an 11,000-person study, and it's event-driven. So we'll be actually looking at the number of events and the study will terminate when we have that appropriate number of events. And what I can say is that it's actually very highly conservatively powered. Both Roche and Alnylam want to ensure and the investigators that this is a successful study. We're testing a paradigm-shifting approach. And so we've really conservatively powered the study to be able to yield those kinds of meaningful results.
Great. And then with that data in hand, can we talk about how we would see zile fitting into clinical practice alongside other hypertensive meds? What lines of treatment? Is it mono? Is it combo?
Yes. So maybe I can start, Simon, you can start with how we're thinking about that from the company's positioning, but I think it'd also be important to hear from Neha and Bryan about how a therapy like this might be used initially and over time, where you might see it fitting in, assuming the results are positive.
Yes. Great. Yes. No, I mean, look, that's a great question. And clearly, you can see the design of the trial and patients will be on a background of two or more antihypertensives, but these are going to be the patients with the highest unmet need, right, high cardiovascular risk, established CVD and those patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease. And that's where we believe. Firstly, we can create the most value for patients, payers and physicians. And I think we all have aspirations for zilebesiran to go to earlier lines of therapy, but that's where we're going to start.
And look, we're going for a broad indication. So it will be something like zilebesiran is indicated to reduce cardiovascular risk in patients with hypertension and high cardiovascular risk. So I think the opportunity is sizable.
Maybe Neha, do you want to -- if something like this was available, how would you think about using it, assuming, again, positive results? And then we'll ask Bryan the same question.
Yes, it's a great question, actually. And I think all drugs start with the highest risk population for many reasons. First, that's the greatest unmet need. And those are the patients that we, as clinicians, when we're enrolling in clinical trials, we are most eager to get our highest risk patients into trials because the potential benefit for them is that much greater. And then you also generate more events, frankly, for the cardiovascular outcome and there's a practicality to that as well.
In clinical practice, though, we tend to start to use what is most effective and easiest to get over time. And that doesn't necessarily only end with the high-risk patients. So if you have a therapy that is very easy for patients, it is something that decreases their pill burden. They don't have to think about it. And it's not only having them take less pills, which makes them happy, which makes you happy because when they're not happy, I promise you the clinician is not happy because we hear about it.
Then it also provides you some measure of reassurance that they are getting continuous blood pressure control, whether they take their medications that day or not. So I could certainly see -- presuming that the outcomes trial will be positive, which we hope and expect that it will be, I could certainly see over time that zilebesiran kind of edges its way forward earlier in the line of therapy.
Bryan, anything to add?
Yes. I think it's fascinating because it is a completely different therapeutic than anything else we've got. And in many ways, it's reassuring that there are others in different areas like there's a whole spectrum of them being developed in the lipid field with triglycerides, LPA, cholesterol. So at some point, the payers and the regulators are going to have to face up to the fact that there is a different paradigm for treatment coming down the track. And for prevention, I think eventually, it's dawning on everybody that patients generally don't like taking medications every day, particularly if it's not producing symptomatic relief and doesn't seem to be doing anything.
So if you think about it, some sort of program of biannual twice a year injection to act as a cardiovascular prevention strategy would be very attractive. And I -- we know that there are ongoing trials with inclisiran, which I would anticipate will be positive in high-risk patients for cholesterol. So the health systems are going to have to get around the idea that they're going to have to work how to do this. And you can imagine that the two most important things you can probably do is lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol.
The idea that you could give a jam once every 6 months and who knows, potentially less frequent than that, depending on the -- what we learn about the duration of effect and things. That would be very attractive as a strategy to prevent cardiovascular disease. And you might do it initially in the high-risk groups. But eventually, you could see many patients saying, well, I would like a bit of that. That sounds quite interesting and better than what I've been used to using. But I think we have to accept that it's going to require a lot of discussion and a lot of people to start thinking in a slightly different way, but I think they will because I think this type of approach is going to catch on. I mean who would have thought patients would have been happy going around jabbing themselves for weight loss -- weight loss.
I remember when people started talking about that saying, people saying patients will never inject themselves like that. And they can't get enough of the stuff. So I mean, I think the -- this is -- people will do what's easy and will be less inconvenient to them.
Yes. No, I think really well. Maybe look, again, we're going to start in this high-risk population. As Neha said, this is really where there's the urgency to treat and from a practical perspective, how we have to do an outcome study. But over time, it would be wonderful if this drug could be used in earlier lines of therapy. And hopefully, the data will support that. I was actually meeting with patient advocates in the cardiovascular field this morning, and one of their big points was, I think you said this, patients don't like to be reminded that they're ill every day by having to take pills, right? That's really not a nice feeling. And so this may be a way for patients to not have to remember that and be reminded of it on a daily basis.
But when you're talking about prevention, and many of them are not ill.
Right?
And that's the point.
That's not the point. Yes.
We're trying to maintain health. And that's -- it feels alien to them that you should say you're healthy and we want to keep you that way, but you've got to take tablets.
Right. So it's like a vitamin at that point.
Maybe a slightly build question on top of the one that was just asked. So when we talk about the profile that Simon had to describe, what do we think that total addressable patient population could potentially be? And given the refinement in the Phase III population, does also represent a significant opportunity for Alnylam within their pipeline?
That's great. So maybe, Simon, you can speak just about to what we understand is the addressable population. And maybe Manu might have something to add as well from the Roche perspective.
Yes. I mean I think we've had others make comments about this, but, I shared a slide, 62 million was on there. Those are the estimated number of patients that have uncontrolled hypertension and high cardiovascular risk. Given the refinements, the use of our diuretic in the inclusion criteria, many of these patients are already on a diuretic. It's a first-line therapy. We saw the AHA, ACC guidelines recently come out for hypertension. They were speaking to diuretics. They were talking about earlier prevention for patients with risk factors for hypertension. So I think the opportunity for us has not changed. But perhaps Neha, do you want to give some more flavor to how you see it as well?
My God, there's so many patients like everyone. I can't imagine that the issue is not are there enough patients for this to be useful. The issue will -- if this outcomes trial is positive, the issue will be how will we get this therapy to everybody who needs it. And so yes, I don't see a concern.
Manu, did you have anything to add?
I can top the answer from me. I mean I think that's exactly right. Yes, everything that you guys have said about going into high risk first, all kind of make sense. So yes, covers it all.
Thank you, Manu.
Great. And for those of us here at ESC, we saw Dr. Williams present the BAX data earlier today. There's a question about whether we could give a sense on how KARDIA-3 compares to the Phase III result from BAX and resistant hypertension. They had a median of 3 background hypertensive and most on RAS blockade and showed pretty impressive placebo-adjusted blood pressure improvements. Just wondering how zile would compare.
Yes, really important question. I think people are seeing the results of two large studies on antihypertensives that read out in the same hotline session. We have the two presenters here. So while we can't do cross-study comparisons, we'll do a little bit of qualifications. So Bryan, you want to start and then Neha.
Yes. I mean, look, I mean, I don't usually cross-compare studies because I mean, they're done for different reasons, and they include different types of patients. Although in this case, we have probably got high-risk patients and diuretic background diuretic. The interesting thing about the BAX study when we designed it, I wanted everybody to be on a diuretic, even though we were giving a diuretic as well because actually aldosterone synthase inhibition is effectively a natriuretic agent.
So we were going for sort of bumper diuretic because I had long believed that once you get into these resistant cases, there's a lot of resistance to get salt off and this is a good mechanism to do it. So we ended up with 90-odd percent of people on a diuretic. So the thing I would say is that absolutely the strategy of Zenith is right. You have to do that for this population. And actually, the study you mentioned shows that you can do it. I mean, because we did this globally. I remember going to Bangkok or India and people saying to me, nobody takes diuretics here. I said, well, they will have to now. They want to get their blood pressure control.
And actually, you explained the rationale and you can get very high rates of uptake. So I'm very confident the study will be delivered. We gave that drug, Baxdrostat on top of RAS blockade. And you could imagine a scenario going forward where -- if you need a diuretic, that could be used in combination potentially with zilebesiran as a diuretic combination as part of treatment going forward.
So I think it's exciting that we've got new drugs being developed in hypertension. I can see many of these drugs being used in combination, and they all bring something different to the table, but they're all necessary mechanisms to try and get the most difficult patients controlled.
Fantastic. Neha, anything you want to add?
Yes. Maybe just a couple of points. I think it really is -- the trials are presented one right after another, but I think it really is important to remember that KARDIA-3 was a Phase II trial, not a Phase III trial. And along with that comes a lot of differences. I think the other thing from my perspective as a clinician, we have had -- and Bryan, you've spoken so well about this.
We have had a complete dearth of innovation in this space for decades. Forget the fact that it is the single greatest contributor to cardiovascular disease and death worldwide and yet nothing was done new in the space for decades. And now we have this kind of explosion of excitement. This is only a good thing. This is only the right thing for patients. It is only a good thing to have more options for our patients. I think the innovation that we're seeing with zilebesiran is so exciting because it is a totally new mechanism of action. It's a totally different way to deliver drug. It's a totally different way to think about prevention. But regardless, having more options is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Well said. We have one final question. I know we've just gotten started, but people are curious on enrollment projections and time line. And then specifically a question about whether we're planning to include the REVERSIR in the Phase III? And do we still think launch in 2030 is feasible?
Yes. So a couple of questions there. Look, we're just getting kicked off, as Simon highlighted. And obviously, there's real urgency for us to enroll this study with the right patients and do that. And so we're working with our colleagues at Roche, colleagues at DCRI and our CRO partners to really get this study up. And so there's a lot of enthusiasm. We met with the investigators and the national coordinators at this meeting. So there's a lot of enthusiasm, and we're all going to be working as hard as we can to get this enrolled.
We haven't projected specific time lines, but we still anticipate that around 2030 is when we'll get top line results from this study, but we'll give updates at the appropriate time. We did -- Simon mentioned that we do have a REVERSIR program. I think what the remarkable thing about this product is we've actually now dosed almost 1,000 patients with this drug. And I will say, before we put it into the clinic, there was a lot of questions about what might be the impact of lowering blood pressure for 6 months at a time. And what's been remarkable is whether as a monotherapy or in combination, over almost 1,000 patients incidence of symptomatic hypotension has been negligible.
It's really quite remarkable. And so we're very delighted by that. And there's many ways that people can actually have their -- if they do experience low blood pressure in an emergency situation, it can be managed that works very effectively on this drug. But we do, as Simon said, have the capability to develop a REVERSIR. So we are developing in parallel, and we'll see what the need is. We don't expect there to be any substantive need for something like that, but we want to be cautious, and we're doing that in parallel. And so we'll keep you posted. We're very, very excited about this program. So...
That's what we have time for. Back to you just to thank everyone and wrap us up.
All right. Well, look, again, thank you to colleagues who made it here. It's beautiful Madrid. Thanks to all of you who joined in on the webcast. Very heartfelt thanks to Neha, Bryan and Simon for joining up here and Manu for joining on the Zoom. I hope you all sense that there's really something very, very exciting here in terms of an entirely novel way to treat such a serious and intractable problem. And we just couldn't be more delighted about the opportunity to really shift the entire curve and be a paradigm-shifting the therapy for hypertension and cardiovascular disease.
So thanks for joining us, and we'll keep you updated in the future. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc — Special Call - Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Financial data from Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc
Revenue
Revenue is the sum of all sales generated by a company, e.g. for its products or services.
Revenue (TTM) metric explainedDirect Costs
Direct costs are the costs incurred directly in connection with the manufacture of the product or service.
Gross Profit
Gross Profit indicates how much of the revenue remains in the company after deducting direct production costs. If the percentage share of sales is calculated, this is referred to as the gross margin.
Gross Profit metric explainedSelling and Administrative Expenses
Selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A) include all expenses for marketing and sales as well as the general administration of the company.
Research and Development Expense
Research and development costs (R&D) provide information on how much the company invests in the research and development of its products. The costs are particularly interesting as a percentage of revenue and in comparison to direct competitors.
EBITDA
EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) is the company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. The EBITDA margin is calculated as a percentage of sales.
Depreciation and Amortization
Depreciation represents reductions in the value of the company's assets (e.g. due to wear and tear on machinery).
EBIT (Operating Income)
EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) is the company's profit before interest and taxes, also known as the operating income. The EBIT Margin is calculated as a percentage of sales at
.
Net Profit
Net Profit represents the profit or loss after deduction of all costs.
Net Profit metric explainedStocksGuide Free
| Jun '26 |
+/-
%
|
||
| Revenue | 4,804 4,804 |
95%
95%
100%
|
|
| - Direct Costs | 977 977 |
143%
143%
20%
|
|
| Gross Profit | 3,827 3,827 |
86%
86%
80%
|
|
| - Selling and Administrative Expenses | 1,318 1,318 |
22%
22%
27%
|
|
| - Research and Development Expense | 1,509 1,509 |
30%
30%
31%
|
|
| EBITDA | 1,012 1,012 |
918%
918%
21%
|
|
| - Depreciation and Amortization | 55 55 |
3%
3%
1%
|
|
| EBIT (Operating Income) EBIT | 957 957 |
631%
631%
20%
|
|
| Net Profit | 808 808 |
353%
353%
17%
|
|
In millions USD.
Don't miss a Thing! We will send you all news about Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc directly to your mailbox free of charge.
If you wish, we will send you an e-mail every morning with news on stocks of your portfolios.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc Stock News
Company Profile
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. operates as biopharmaceutical company, which engages in the discovery, development and commercialization of RNAi therapeutics. It is the translation of RNAi as a new class of innovative medicines with a core focus on RNAi therapeutics for the treatment of genetically defined diseases. The company was founded by John Kennedy Clarke, Paul R. Schimmel and Phillip A. Sharp on June 14, 2002 and is headquartered in Cambridge, MA.
StocksGuide Free
| Head office | United States |
| CEO | Dr. Greenstreet |
| Employees | 2,500 |
| Founded | 2002 |
| Website | www.alnylam.com |


