“[Arbuckle] was really at the forefront of helping scale the [Vertex] organization to be the behemoth it is today,” said Christine Akinc, Alnylam’s chief corporate communications officer. “When we look at the trajectory of Alnylam and what we’re intending to do, that’s the path we’re on as well.” Most biotechs fail. The more successful ones develop effective drugs, and often get bought out. And a few make it to critical mass on their own, as Vertex did and Alnylam is doing. Alnylam is a pioneer in what’s known as “RNAi therapeutics,” a gene-silencing treatment that blocks proteins that cause diseases...