Alnylam Named to The Scientist Magazine’s 2010 Best Places to Work in Industry

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY), a leading RNAi therapeutics company, today announced that it has been named one of the Best Places to Work in Industry by The Scientist magazine. Alnylam was ranked 8^th on the Top 10 Small Companies list, and 12^th overall.

"It is an honor to be recognized for the second year in a row as one of the top places to work in the industry. Alnylam is only as strong as its people, and we work hard to foster an environment and culture that inspires them to take on bold challenges,” said John Maraganore, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Alnylam. "We are passionate about advancing RNAi therapeutics to create a whole new class of medicines, and it is this passion that drives our culture and commitment to scientific excellence and innovation in all that we do.”

"We are pleased to present the results of our 8^th ‘Best Places to Work in Industry’ survey,” says Associate Editor Edyta Zielinska, who oversees the Best Places surveys. "This year’s winners include innovative companies that value scientific creativity and encourage employees to give back to their community.”

The Scientist’s May issue features detailed survey results with the top 30 companies overall, in addition to rankings of the top 10 large (more than 5,000 employees) and 10 small (1,000 employees or less) institutions. The Best Places to Work in Industry Award recognizes the most progressive companies in the industry based on employee opinions about categories such as job satisfaction, benefits, training, and integrity. According to The Scientist, criteria such as remuneration and benefits, training, educational development, and a sense of community topped respondent’s priorities. The rankings in The Scientist’s Best Places to Work in Industry are based on survey information collected from life sciences companies worldwide. The full article with detailed survey results can be found in the May issue of The Scientist and is available online at www.the-scientist.com/bptw.

About RNA Interference (RNAi)

RNAi (RNA interference) is a revolution in biology, representing a breakthrough in understanding how genes are turned on and off in cells, and a completely new approach to drug discovery and development. Its discovery has been heralded as "a major scientific breakthrough that happens once every decade or so,” and represents one of the most promising and rapidly advancing frontiers in biology and drug discovery today which was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. RNAi is a natural process of gene silencing that occurs in organisms ranging from plants to mammals. By harnessing the natural biological process of RNAi occurring in our cells, the creation of a major new class of medicines, known as RNAi therapeutics, is on the horizon. Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), the molecules that mediate RNAi and comprise Alnylam’s RNAi therapeutic platform, target the cause of diseases by potently silencing specific mRNAs, thereby preventing disease-causing proteins from being made. RNAi therapeutics have the potential to treat disease and help patients in a fundamentally new way.

About Alnylam Pharmaceuticals

Alnylam is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics based on RNA interference, or RNAi. The company is applying its therapeutic expertise in RNAi to address significant medical needs, many of which cannot effectively be addressed with small molecules or antibodies, the current major classes of drugs. Alnylam is leading the translation of RNAi as a new class of innovative medicines with peer-reviewed research efforts published in the world’s top scientific journals including Nature, Nature Medicine, and Cell. The company is leveraging these capabilities to build a broad pipeline of RNAi therapeutics for the treatment of a wide range of disease areas, including respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), liver cancers, TTR-mediated amyloidosis (ATTR), hypercholesterolemia, and Huntington’s disease. In addition, Alnylam formed Alnylam Biotherapeutics, a division of the company focused on the development of RNAi technologies for application in manufacturing processes for biotherapeutic products, including recombinant proteins and monoclonal antibodies. The company’s leadership position in fundamental patents, technology, and know-how relating to RNAi has enabled it to form major alliances with leading companies including Medtronic, Novartis, Biogen Idec, Roche, Takeda, Kyowa Hakko Kirin, and Cubist. Alnylam and Isis are joint owners of Regulus Therapeutics Inc., a company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of microRNA-based therapeutics. Founded in 2002, Alnylam maintains headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more information, please visit www.alnylam.com.

Alnylam Forward-Looking Statement

Various statements in this release concerning Alnylam's future expectations, plans and prospects, constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those risks more fully discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of its most recent annual report on Form 10-K on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent Alnylam's views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing its views as of any subsequent date. Alnylam does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.