Insert Therapeutics and Intradigm are also working on targeted treatments, but both companies are also exploring the use of a Nobel Prize-winning therapy based on RNA interference (RNAi).

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Now a similar sea change may be afoot, thanks to a new technology called RNA interference, or RNAi, which allows scientists to stop a disease by silencing a particular gene.

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Sirna has been in the news of late because Andrew Fire and Craig Mello, the discoverers of the technology upon which Sirna's drugs are based--RNA interference, or RNAi-- won a Nobel Prize for medicine last month.

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What's more, later research would reveal that genes that create this kind of RNA--known as RNAi, for RNA interference--existed in plants, fruit flies and even people.

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