Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has earned a $10 million milestone payment from Biogen Idec associated with the validation of an undisclosed target to treat a neurological disorder.  This is the first milestone payment under Isis' and Biogen Idec's 2013 strategic collaboration to advance the treatment of neurological disorders.  

This collaboration combines Biogen Idec's expertise in neurology with Isis' leadership in antisense technology to develop novel therapies to treat neurological disorders and is the fourth collaboration between the two companies.

"Together with Biogen Idec, we have made significant progress advancing multiple partnered programmes.  Today, we have achieved the first milestone under our broad strategic collaboration with Biogen Idec to develop drugs to treat patients with neurological disorders," said B. Lynne Parshall, chief operating officer at Isis.  "This year we anticipate expanding our neurological disease franchise with Biogen Idec as we continue to validate new targets and move new antisense drugs into development."

Biogen Idec and Isis have established four collaborations focused on leveraging antisense technology to advance the treatment of neurological and neuromuscular disorders.  This alliance combines Isis' expertise in antisense technology to evaluate potential neurological targets and discover antisense drugs with Biogen Idec's capability to develop therapies for neurological disorders.  Isis is primarily responsible for drug discovery and early development of antisense therapies.  Biogen Idec has the option to license each antisense program at a particular stage in development.  Current development-stage programs include antisense drugs to treat SMA, ISIS-SMNRx, and myotonic dystrophy type 1, ISIS-DMPKRx.

Isis is exploiting its leadership position in antisense technology to discover and develop novel drugs for its product pipeline and for its partners.  Isis' broad pipeline consists of 32 drugs to treat a wide variety of diseases with an emphasis on cardiovascular, metabolic, severe and rare diseases, including neurological disorders, and cancer.