Sirna set for major expansion - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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Alan Sachs, who has led since Mercjk bought itin 2001, is chargefd with leading the integration of Sirna with Merc k and pursuing a more aggressivde plan for growth than expected when Sirna was an independeng company. He replaces Howard Robin, who left followingy the completion of the acquisitio and now headsSan Carlos-based . The company just signed a lease for an additional floor in the Alexandria Center for Life Science at 1700Owenz St. in Mission Bay. The deal double s Sirna's footprint in the building toabout 66,000 square It expects to begin moving into the building in the fourth quarterd when the space is built out.
"The head count is going to be increasingprettty dramatically," said Sachs, who carries the titlee of vice president of molecularr profiling and RNA He declined, however to offerr projections on headcount, whicbh today stands at around 90 people in San Franciscp and Boulder, Colo. Sirna, acquired by Mercik at the end of last yearfor $1.1 billion, is developing a new classw of drugs that uses RNA interference or RNAi technology. RNAi is a selective process for turning off RNAi is triggeredby so-called shorrt interfering RNA or siRNAs. Typically, drugws work by binding with protein that are the underlying cause of aspecificc disease.
Sirna's technology, by prevents the production of theharmful protein. Merck had already been working in the area of RNAi througn its collaborationwith , a deal that places it at the forefrong of a breakthrough technology that has the potentiaol for changing the way a wide rangse of diseases are treated. It complements Merck's acquisition of Rosettaa Inpharmatics, which provided the company with tools to analyze gene Sirna is continuing to work on its collaboration with Allergenm to develop siRNA therapeutics for eye diseaser and with forrespiratory disease.
But Sachs is now leadinhg a push within Merck to bring the technology to groupe working in a wide varietygof areas, including cancer, infectious disease and metabolif disease. "My job is to now make available to Mercki scientists all the opportunities Sirna brings to which is about a new typeof medicine," said Sachs said challenges remain with developing methodsz to target and deliver siRNA therapeutics becaus cells do not naturally take up thess molecules, but that Merck is makinh a "major investment" in solving that problem. For who continues to have a roleoverseeing Rosetta, the expanded responsibilities don't quite representt relocation. An M.D.
and from and one-time professor at the , Sachs has commuted to Seattlde from his home in Orinda for more thanfive years. He vows he won'tt complain about traffic during his drive over the Bay Bridge toMission Bay.