Boehringer Ingelheim closed a research collaboration and license agreement with Dicerna Pharmaceuticals to discover and develop novel GalXC™ RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutics for the treatment of chronic liver diseases. The partnership will initially focus on nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), for which there is no approved treatment option. Dicerna’s GalXC technology platform uses RNAi to inhibit the expression of disease-causing genes by destroying the messenger RNAs (mRNAs) of those genes. The company may receive more than $200 million from Boehringer, including an upfront payment, development and commercial milestone payments, and research and development reimbursement for a GalXC candidate product addressing an undisclosed NASH target.Boehringer Ingelheim closed also another agreement with MiNA Therapeutics for the development of novel compounds to treat NASH, based on MiNA’s small activating RNA (“saRNA”) therapeutics platform.