In August 2011, Silence announced a company reorganisation to consolidate and streamline the Company's operations. Related to this reorganisation: Silence closed its facility in Redwood City, California and reduced headcount in its Berlin, Germany, facility from 32 to 27. As the decision to close the Redwood City facility was taken prior to the period-end, a restructuring charge of ??0.44m was recorded in the first half of 2011. Thomas Christ?©ly, former Chief Operating Officer of Silence, was appointed Chief Executive Officer effective 19 September 2011 following the resignation of Dr Philip Haworth. Dr James Topper resigned from the Board of Directors effective 29 July 2011 and Dr David U'Prichard will leave the Board at the end of 2011. Announced today, Tony Sedgwick appointed as Chief Business Officer strengthening the business development function. Tony will enlarge Silence's business development team with further members as Silence seeks to obtain further collaborations and partnerships that will generate non-dilutive funds for the Company.

Other Post-Period Events

Received a notice of allowance of a new US patent covering novel siRNA delivery technologies. This patent provides protection for a core component of the Company's proprietary AtuPLEX?„? delivery platform, which is incorporated in Silence's lead internal compound, Atu027, and in other RNAi therapeutic candidates. Issuance of a Japanese patent covering certain methods for screening a therapeutic agent for the treatment and/or prevention of any disease that involves elevated activity within the PI3-kinase pathway. This new intellectual property includes coverage for the use of protein kinase N 3 ("PKN3") for screening of therapeutic agents, thus preventing others from using PKN3 for screening purposes.  

Thomas Christ?©ly, CEO of Silence Therapeutics, commented: "The restructuring, re-organisation and refocus of Silence Therapeutics is now complete. It has positioned Silence to be a leaner, more efficient organisation, poised to further develop its world leading RNAi asset portfolio. As a new and strengthened management team, we will have a sharper focus on identifying partners to help progress the development and partnering of our assets, thereby generating non-dilutive cash and/or funding to extend our cash runway. Technically, as we escalate through higher doses in our internal Atu027 oncology program, the interim data consolidate our belief that Atu027 is a safe and effective drug in patients. Our partner Quark also reported encouraging Phase II data in diabetic macular oedema in collaboration with Pfizer. We have strengthened our patent portfolio, streamlined our organisation and secured sufficient funding to continue this successful development. Although this progress has yet to be reflected in Silence's share price, we are convinced that siRNA therapeutics will become a major drug class similar in importance to monoclonal antibodies, due to the various advantages of siRNA therapeutics. In order to overcome the known challenges of delivering siRNA into cells, Silence has also expanded its proprietary delivery technologies from AtuPLEX?„?, to now include DACC and DBTC. This comprehensive delivery platform allows our RNAi therapeutics to reach and affect many different cell types. The breakthroughs have arisen from Silence's decade or more of investigating the actions and disposition of different oliogonucleotides in collaboration with several large pharmaceutical companies. Thus Silence offers today the most comprehensive RNAi therapeutic platform, founded on a portfolio of advanced delivery technologies."  

SOURCE Silence Therapeutics Plc