How many employees work at Isis?
Isis currently has approximately 275 employees.

Can you provide a brief description of your Company? Founded in 1989, Isis is exploiting its expertise in RNA to discover and develop novel drugs for its product pipeline and for its partners.  The Company has successfully commercialized the world's first antisense drug and has 18 drugs in development.  Isis’ drug development programs are focused on treating cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.  Isis’ partners are developing antisense drugs invented by Isis to treat a wide variety of diseases.  Ibis Biosciences, Inc., Isis’ majority-owned subsidiary, is developing and commercializing the Ibis T5000™ Biosensor System, a revolutionary system to identify infectious organisms.  Isis is a joint owner of Regulus Therapeutics LLC, a joint venture focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of microRNA therapeutics.  As an innovator in RNA-based drug discovery and development, Isis is the owner or exclusive licensee of over 1,500 issued patents worldwide.

What are antisense drugs?
At least 12 known antisense mechanisms, such as RNase H, siRNA, and splicing, can be induced once an antisense drug binds to its target RNA. Isis has created proprietary chemical modifications to exploit many of these mechanisms for drug discovery. As its understanding of these mechanisms further improves, the Company expects to develop antisense drugs with enhanced performance and for broader therapeutic applications.

An antisense mechanism is defined as the process in which an antisense inhibitor binds (hybridizes) to a target RNA to form a duplex. The formation of this duplex, or two-stranded molecule, prevents the RNA from functioning normally and from producing a protein product.

Progress in Isis’ mechanism of action research program is illustrated by the Company’s accomplishments in understanding RNase H. The majority of late-stage antisense drugs in development bind to their target RNA to form a duplex, which activates a cellular enzyme called RNase H. This enzyme destroys the target RNA, inhibiting production of a specific protein. Isis has cloned and characterized human RNase H and has effectively used that information to design its proprietary second-generation drugs. The Company expects to further improve on its drugs, using its insights into the RNase H mechanism.

In addition to its RNase H expertise, Isis has made advancements in understanding and exploiting other antisense mechanisms such as siRNA and splicing.

On what areas of research do you focus?
Isis’ antisense drugs can be designed to treat a wide range of conditions. Isis’ drug development programs are focused on treating cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.  Isis’ partners are developing drugs for a wide variety of diseases. Isis' drug discovery efforts will continue to focus on organs of the body where antisense drugs readily distribute: liver, kidney, spleen, bone marrow and fat cells. These sites of activity give Isis broad opportunities to treat disease. Scientists have extensively explored medicinal chemistries and created Isis’ proprietary second-generation antisense compounds (2'-O-methoxyethyl) that offer increased potency, stability and potential for oral bioavailability. The Company has also made significant progress in developing new formulations (aerosol, enema, intrathecal, intravenous, subcutaneous, intravitreal, oral and topical) of antisense drugs, which have expanded the ability to tackle chronic diseases. Additionally, Isis maintains its commitment to core technology research in areas such as antisense mechanisms of action and pharmacodynamics (the study of the action of a drug in the body over a period of time).

What products do you have in your pipeline?
The Company has commercialized its first product, Vitravene® (fomivirsen), to treat CMV-induced retinitis in AIDS patients. In addition, Isis has 18 drugs in its development pipeline. Please visit the pipeline section for more details.

Where can I get information about current clinical trials?
For information on clinical trials, please read the clinical trial section of this web site. If you need additional information, call Isis’ Clinical Trials Hotline at 800-679-ISIS (4747) and leave a message or e-mail our medical information team at trialinfo@isisph.com.

What is Ibis?
Ibis Biosciences, Inc., a majority-owned subsidiary of Isis Pharmaceuticals, has developed and is commercializing the Ibis T5000™ Biosensor System for rapid identification and characterization of infectious agents.  The Ibis T5000 is currently intended for research use only and not for use in diagnostic procedures.  It is capable of identifying virtually all bacteria, viruses and fungi, and can provide information about drug resistance, virulence and strain type of these pathogens.  Commercial applications for the Ibis T5000 Biosensor System include epidemiologic surveillance, monitoring of pandemic diseases, identification of emerging or previously unknown pathogens, forensic characterization of human samples, identification of sources of hospital-associated infections, and, in the future, human infectious disease diagnostics.  Ibis develops, manufactures and markets Ibis T5000 instruments and assay kits, including through its partner, Bruker Daltonics, a subsidiary of Bruker BioSciences Corporation. Ibis is a product of Isis' innovation and research that has generated nearly $70 million in revenue from various government agencies to develop its Ibis T5000 Biosensor System and related assay kits.

Additional information about Ibis Biosciences can be found here.

When and where is Isis presenting at investment and medical conferences?
Please see Isis' calendar of events.