Global Antisense & RNAi Therapeutics Market Size and Trends

The antisense & RNAi therapeutics market size is expected to reach US$ 14.66 Billion by 2030, from US$ 5.40 Billion in 2023, at a CAGR of 15.3% during the forecast period. Antisense and RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutics work by inhibiting the expression of disease-associated genes and have shown great potential for the treatment of various medical conditions. Antisense therapy utilizes short strands of synthetic nucleic acids called antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) that are designed to bind to and modulate mRNA, inhibiting target gene expression. ASOs can block transcription, RNA processing or transport, or translation. The main advantage of antisense therapy is that it allows precise downregulation of disease-relevant genes. However, a major challenge is the difficulty in delivering ASOs to tissue of interest.

RNAi therapeutics utilize small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) that mimic endogenous microRNAs (miRNAs) involved in post-transcriptional gene silencing. When introduced into the cell, siRNAs are incorporated into a multiprotein RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) that guides the degradation of target mRNAs. Similar to ASOs, siRNAs can selectively inhibit the expression of target genes. The advantage of RNAi is its potency at modulating gene expression. However, challenges include the short half-life of siRNAs in circulation as well as difficulties in intracellular delivery. Despite obstacles, both antisense and RNAi therapeutics have shown promise for treating cancer, neurological disorders, and infectious diseases by selectively blocking genes driving disease pathology.

Antisense & RNAi Therapeutics Market Trends:

Focus on personalized medicines: The global antisense and RNAi therapeutics market is experiencing significant influence from the growing trend of multidisciplinary development approaches. Conventional drug development typically involved separate silos for discovery, preclinical and clinical research, and regulatory functions. However, there is now a shift towards more integrated, multidisciplinary models that bring together diverse expertise throughout the entire drug development life cycle. This holistic, collaborative approach is proving beneficial for antisense and RNAi therapies, which present unique technical challenges. By their very mechanism of action, these nucleic acid-based drugs require input from a wide breadth of scientific knowledge, including molecular biology, biochemistry, pharmacology and clinical medicine. Multidisciplinary teams allow these specialized skillsets to collectively advance antisense and RNAi candidates in a more streamlined manner. For example, researchers from Ionis Pharmaceuticals published results in 2022 demonstrating their cross-functional development model helped accelerate delivery of a new antisense drug to treat hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis by 2 years compared to traditional approaches.