** Shares of drugmaker Alnylam Pharmaceuticals ALNY.O rise 3.89% to $303.98

** Co said late on Wednesday it had teamed up with privately held AI biotech Inceptive in a deal worth up to $2 billion to use AI to speed up discovery of RNA-based medicines

** ALNY will pay $30 million upfront, including cash and an equity investment in Inceptive, with additional payments tied to pre-clinical, regulatory and sales milestones

** The collaboration aims to help design and select drug candidates faster, using ALNY's drug platform and Inceptive's AI models - ALNY

** Including session's move, ALNY down 23.7% YTD