Isis Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca deal

Isis received $16 million in milestone payments last week from AstraZeneca under a December 2012 deal to discover antisense therapeutics against four undisclosed cancer targets and that granted the pharma rights to ISIS-STAT3Rx and ISIS-ARRx. Isis received the first milestone payment of $10 million after AstraZeneca accepted ISIS-ARRx ( AZD5312, formerly ISIS-AZ1Rx) as the second compound under the deal. Isis said it is working with the pharma to select the other three cancer targets. ISIS-ARRx is a preclinical antisense inhibitor of the production of androgen receptor to treat prostate cancer. Isis said it could start Phase I as early as in 1H14. ...