Biogen and Ionis join in $1 billion neuroscience pact

Abstract

Biogen is making a huge bet that antisense technology can become a cornerstone treatment for neurological disorders. The big biotech firm is paying Ionis Pharmaceuticals $1 billion in cash to significantly broaden their joint efforts to develop drugs for rare neurodegenerative disorders, as well as diseases like Alzheimer’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Biogen will pay Ionis $375 million up front and buy $625 million worth of Ionis stock. In return, Biogen can license therapies that emerge from the 10-year research pact. Ionis has long been a leader in the field of antisense therapeutics, which use short, single-stranded RNA to intercept messenger RNA, thereby preventing bad-behaving proteins from being built. Biogen already has several partnerships with Ionis, including one that yielded a marketed drug, Spinraza, the first treatment for spinal muscular atrophy, a rare and often deadly muscle-wasting disease. The drug is life saving but breathtakingly expensive: $750,000 for the first