Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, a pioneer in RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutics, has joined the Alliance for Genomic Discovery (AGD) as its ninth member, announced Illumina, Inc. and Nashville Biosciences, LLC on September 18, 2025. The partnership positions Alnylam to utilize the AGD's comprehensive clinical genomic database to accelerate drug target discovery for gene silencing medicines.
Expanding Genomic Resources for RNAi Development
Alnylam joins an established consortium that includes AbbVie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Bristol Myers Squibb, GSK, Merck, and Novo Nordisk. The company's membership will strengthen the AGD clinical genomic database, enabling additional investment to sequence and analyze 31,250 new whole-genomes, expanding the alliance's existing 250,000 whole-genome cohort.
"We welcome Alnylam to the AGD as our members continue to leverage data that fuels innovation in novel therapeutics to improve lives of patients everywhere," said Todd Christian, senior vice president of Services, Arrays and Genomic Access at Illumina. "Alnylam's decision to join the alliance speaks to the immense value of this resource that combines powerful scale and depth of sequencing with clinical data quality and diverse ancestral representation."
Leveraging Human Genetics for Target Discovery
RNAi therapeutics function by "silencing" genes that cause or contribute to disease, working upstream of traditional treatment approaches. The AGD dataset will provide Alnylam scientists with a valuable resource for identifying new therapeutic targets across diverse patient populations.
"We are excited to join the Alliance for Genomic Discovery and contribute to the expansion of this important dataset, while simultaneously mining it for insights," said Paul Nioi, senior vice president of Research at Alnylam. "We rely on human genetics to guide us as we discover and develop RNAi therapeutics with the potential to change medicine. The AGD dataset will bolster our ability to identify therapeutic targets that are relevant to patients from many different backgrounds."
Comprehensive Dataset Drives Innovation
As of March 2025, the AGD completed a major milestone in developing what is described as the most comprehensive clinical genomic dataset to date. The alliance has prioritized creating a fully representative cohort by linking analyzed, ancestrally diverse genomic data with informative longitudinal clinical phenotyping, ensuring discoveries benefit all people and uncovering insights often missed in more homogeneous datasets.
The alliance's sequencing pace has surpassed previous large-scale genomic efforts, which typically required three to five years to reach 100,000 sequenced genomes. The rapid analysis is enabled by DRAGEN and Illumina Connected Analytics, while large-scale aggregation with DRAGEN Iterative gVCF Genotyper enhances variant calling accuracy and consistency across diverse populations.
Proven Value in Target Identification
The AGD dataset has already demonstrated its value to alliance members, with novel therapeutic targets identified or validated, particularly in autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases. Reports on these discoveries have been published or are underway, showcasing the dataset's practical applications in drug development.
"We are thrilled that Alnylam has chosen to join the AGD and help us expand this unique dataset for all members," said Leeland Ekstrom, chief executive officer of NashBio. "Additional data scale, as well as other planned extensions, such as adding proteomics and extracting more clinical phenotypes from the unstructured parts of the linked electronic health records, will accelerate the pace and types of innovation possible with this resource."
Future Expansion Plans
The growth in alliance membership coincides with plans to add multiomic layers to the dataset, which will facilitate faster and more efficient target discovery and therapy development. Planned extensions include incorporating proteomics data and extracting additional clinical phenotypes from unstructured electronic health records.
Illumina and NashBio are actively expanding the AGD network to build upon current successes, with goals of accelerating therapeutic discovery and establishing new standards for clinical R&D pace, cost efficiency, and efficacy. The collaboration represents a significant step forward in leveraging large-scale genomic data to advance precision medicine and therapeutic development across diverse patient populations.
