The grant, plainly. On August 11, 2020, Dicerna Pharmaceuticals was issued US10738311B2, covering therapeutic inhibition of lactate dehydrogenase using RNA-interference agents. The CPC tags — C12N 15/1137 (gene-expression regulation) and the C12N 2310 oligonucleotide-modification series — place it in the silencing-therapeutic stack, aimed at a specific metabolic target.

Why a financing desk reads patents: a development-stage RNAi company has no product revenue, so its valuation rests on cash, burn, and the strength of its IP estate. When such a company raises — a secondary, a PIPE, a collaboration with an upfront — the issued grants are the assets investors are effectively buying exposure to. Dilution math, plainly, is the cost of extending runway against that IP.

“This invention relates to compounds, compositions, and methods useful for reducing lactact dehydrogenase target RNA and protein levels via use of ds RNAs, e.g., Dicer substrate siRNA (DsiRNA) agents.”— U.S. Patent No. 10,738,311 source

The cautionary frame: issued IP supports a raise, but it does not pay the bills. A single target-specific grant is one line in an estate; runway is still cash divided by burn. For holders, the question is whether a financing buys enough quarters to convert the IP into clinical value before the next dilution event.

What the grant does not tell you: the company's cash position, its quarterly burn, or its share count. Those come from the 10-Q, not the patent. The grant tells you the asset exists and what it covers; the filing tells you how long the company can fund the work around it.

The takeaway for a capital-markets reader: treat issued platform and target grants as the collateral behind a development-stage raise, then do the runway math separately. Dicerna's August 2020 LDH-silencing grant is a concrete, dated example of the IP that such a financing story rests on.