Kevin Fitzgerald on patient adherence
From Ep169: Kevin Fitzgerald on the Past & Future of RNAi Medicines · · The Long Run with Luke Timmerman
“When you have silent diseases, even if there are therapies like statins, people don't take them — and drugs don't work when people don't take them. What we're imagining is a prophylactic or a treatment that's once every six months: you go in, you get an injection, and then you forget about it.”
On , Kevin Fitzgerald, Executive Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Early Research & Early Development at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, spoke about patient adherence during Ep169: Kevin Fitzgerald on the Past & Future of RNAi Medicines on The Long Run with Luke Timmerman.
About Kevin Fitzgerald
In a June 2024 podcast appearance, Kevin Fitzgerald discussed the evolution of RNA interference (RNAi) medicines at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, where he has served as chief scientific officer since joining the company in 2005. He described the company's progress from early challenges in delivering RNA molecules into cells to having four FDA-approved medicines for rare diseases and a fifth drug, Leqvio, marketed by Novartis for lowering LDL cholesterol. Fitzgerald emphasized the potential of RNAi therapies for chronic conditions, noting that patients often stop taking daily pills for "silent diseases" and that Alnylam aims to develop treatments administered via injection once every six months to improve adherence. Fitzgerald also contrasted RNAi approaches with gene editing, stating that he prefers "controllable, reversible pharmacology" because RNA-based drugs can be designed to wear off or be counteracted with an antidote, whereas permanent gene editing is irreversible. He attributed his nearly two-decade tenure at Alnylam to the technology's continuous improvement and its expanding potential to treat both rare and common diseases.