A Sluggish Start With Onpattro Is Not What Alnylam Shareholders Needed

There’s not much any company can do about a bad tape, but Alnylam (ALNY) has seen sentiment sour pretty sharply since late 2017 despite the approval and launch of its first drug Onpattro. Between worries about greater competition (moreso from Pfizer (PFE) than Ionis (IONS)/Akcea (AKCA)), competition in other disease indications, longer clinical timelines, overall drug pricing, and so on, Alnylam added one more worry to the mix with a disappointing initial quarterly launch number for Onpattro.

While it’s true that a single quarter doesn’t tell you much of anything about a drug’s future, it’s still not the beginning that investors wanted for a highly-valued biotech that made the choice to take on more commercial responsibility ostensibly to maximize the value of its pipeline. I’m still a believer in Alnylam, but the Onpattro launch could well be less like Ionis/Biogen’s (BIIB) Spinraza, Alexion’s (ALXN) Strensiq, or Vertex’s (VRTX) Kalydeco than investors had hoped, and further disappointment is just not what the stock needs right now.

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A Sluggish Start With Onpattro Is Not What Alnylam Shareholders Needed