Isis Pharmaceuticals, a companyengaged in the discovery and development of antisense drugs using novel drug discovery platform, has earned a $3 million milestone payment from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) related to the initiation of a natural history study, which will support the advancement of one of the alliance programmes.

"We have had a very productive alliance with GlaxoSmithKline, from which we have advanced three antisense drugs in our pipeline, including ISIS-TTRRx, which is currently in phase 3 development.  The payment we earned is further evidence of this productive collaboration," said B Lynne Parshall, chief operating officer at Isis.   

GlaxoSmithKline and Isis have established an alliance focused on leveraging antisense technology to develop drugs to treat rare and infectious diseases.  This alliance provides GlaxoSmithKline with access to Isis' expertise in drug discovery and development of RNA-targeted therapeutics, with Isis retaining responsibility for the discovery and development of compounds to the alliance targets from inception to proof-of-concept.  Current development-stage programmes include ISIS-TTRRx for patients with familial transthyretin polyneuropathy, ISIS-HBVRx for patients with hepatitis B virus and ISIS-GSK4Rx for patients with an undisclosed ocular disorder.