Al­ny­lam, Sarep­ta jump in­to Covid-19 game, as pan­dem­ic rekin­dles an­tivi­ral hopes of RNA-tar­get­ing tech­nol­o­gy

The idea had been there from the be­gin­ning. Sci­en­tists, study­ing plants and worms at the turn of the 21st cen­tu­ry, dis­cov­ered a mech­a­nism cells used to cut up the RNA of in­vad­ing virus­es. Why not re­jig the mech­a­nism, called RNA in­ter­fer­ence (RNAi), to spear the virus­es that at­tacked hu­mans?

“Even way, way at the be­gin­ning, it was one of the ar­eas of in­ter­est,” John Maraganore, CEO of RNAi biotech Al­ny­lam, told End­points News.

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