Leaders in the medical field have yearned for years to be able to prevent diseases and other ailments rather than just having to treat them. The will to do so had always been there but the question was, “How?” Rxi Pharmaceuticals Corp. (NASDAQ: RXII) believes they have the answer with RNAi therapy. RNA interference (RNAi) is a mechanism that inhibits gene expression at the stage of translation or by hindering the transcription of specific genes. Basically, if you have the gene of particular disease, RNAi therapy can prevent this gene from “expressing itself”, which means that you will not show the symptoms of the disease.

RXi Pharmaceuticals (NasdaqCM: RXII) is a discovery-stage biopharmaceutical company that specializes in the development and commercialization of RNA interference (RNAi) based proprietary therapeutics for use in the treatment of various diseases, including Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS), Obesity, Type 2 diabetes and cancer. The Company is looking to expand its therapies to include the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease along with Huntington’s disease.

It’s always exciting when one of the RedChip clients is in the news, and this week RXi Pharmaceuticals has made headlines when they announced that they’ve licensed exclusive worldwide rights from the University of Massachusetts Medical School to certain technology for the oral delivery of RNAi therapeutics. The technology was developed by Dr. Michael Czech, Professor and Chair, Program in Molecular Medicine at UMMS and an RXi founder, and Dr. Gary R. Ostroff, Professor of Molecular Medicine at UMMS and an RXi collaborator.