9 March 2020 - - US-based RNAi therapeutics company Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALNY) has appointed Dr. Olivier Brandicourt to its board of directors effective March 2, 2020, the company said.

Brandicourt served as chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors of Sanofi from 2015 to 2019.

Prior to that he was CEO and chair of Bayer HealthCare from 2013 to 2015, and spent 13 years at Pfizer, including as a member of its executive leadership team and president and general manager of the Emerging Markets and Established Products business units, amongst other roles.

In addition, Alnylam announces TODAY the retirement of Dr. Paul Schimmel from the board effective upon the conclusion of his current term at the annual meeting of Alnylam stockholders in 2020.

Dr. Schimmel, Hahn Professor of Molecular Medicine at Scripps Research and MacArthur Professor Emeritus at MIT, is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, American Philosophical Society, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Schimmel co-founded Alnylam where he served on the board of directors and Scientific advisory board since the company's founding in 2002.

Following his retirement from the board of directors, Dr. Schimmel will continue to serve on the company's Scientific advisory board.

A physician by training, Dr. Brandicourt holds an Advanced Degree in Cellular and Immunological Pathophysiology from Paris Descartes University. He worked at the Institute of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris with a focus on malaria research in West and Central Africa.

Dr. Brandicourt formerly served as chair of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Board, is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London, and is a Board member of the National Committee on United States-China Relations in New York.

Since December 2019 Dr. Brandicourt has also served as a Senior Advisor at Blackstone.