Silence announces Quark arbitration resolution

Quark arbitration resolution

20 December 2016

London, 20 December 2016 - Silence Therapeutics plc, AIM:SLN ("Silence" or "the Company") a leader in the discovery, delivery and development of novel RNA therapeutics for the treatment of serious diseases with unmet medical need, is pleased to announce that it has reached a settlement in the arbitration process with Quark Pharmaceuticals.

Silence and its licensee Quark Pharmaceuticals have resolved their dispute regarding a milestone payment. As a result, Silence is to receive a $1m cash payment. Under the terms of the agreement, Silence is also eligible to receive either approximately 2% royalties from Quark plus milestones, or 15% of the clinical, regulatory and commercial milestone payments and royalties received by Quark from its partner Novartis.

Quark's QPI-1002 clinical candidate, which uses Silence's AtuRNAi® chemical modification technology, is currently in a Phase 3 trial in Delayed Graft Function (DGF) as well as in a Phase 2 study in Acute Kidney Injury (AKI). Quark's DGF trial is being conducted across 90 centres in United States, Canada, Australia, South America and several European countries. Guidance for the AKI trial indicates that the study is recruiting patients from 41 centres in United States, Canada and Germany. Upon completion of these studies, almost 1,000 patients will have been treated in studies involving QPI-1002.

Ali Mortazavi, Chief Executive Officer of Silence Therapeutics, commented:

"We are pleased to resolve this matter and now look forward to the efficacy readouts in these indications of high unmet need. As we have indicated before, the RNA stabilisation chemistry being used in QPI-1002 is a critical component of any RNA medicine and we believe that other clinical programmes will also require licenses to our technology that is protected by Silence's intellectual property."

The information contained within this announcement is deemed to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014. Upon the publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.

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About Silence Therapeutics plc

Our technology harnesses the body's natural mechanisms to create therapeutic effects within its cells. This technology can selectively silence or replace any gene in the genome, modulating gene expression up as well as down in a variety of organs and cell types, in vivo. We have developed proprietary modifications to improve the robustness of RNA sequences, as well as advanced chemistries to enhance the effective delivery of therapeutic RNA molecules to target cells.