Stockwatch: Is Alnylam’s Rare Disease Business Model Sustainable?

The fourth-quarter 2019 earnings report of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. was notable for the stock market’s nonplussed response. This was despite Alnylam’s first product – Onpattro (patisiran), the world’s first approved RNAi drug for the orphan indication hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis – growing revenue by 21% over the third quarter of 2019, after 18 months on the market. Together with $150m in the first ever quarterly revenues from its second approved product Givlaari (givosiran) – for the rare inherited indication acute hepatic porphyria – and collaboration revenues, Alnylam’s total fourth-quarter 2019 revenues were $71.68m. Total revenue just missed analysts’ consensus estimates of $71.92m while its quarterly loss of $221m, or $1.98 per share, beat analysts’ estimates of $2.22 per share.