Carlsbad, CA-based Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ISIS) is a drug discovery and development company that focuses on the development of products using ribonucleic acid (RNA)-based technologies, such as antisense. The company discovers new drugs and out-licenses them to partners for license fees, milestone payments, and royalties. Isis Pharma has partnership agreements with leading pharmaceuticals companies like Biogen and Glaxo among others.
Isis Pharma’s only approved product, Kynamro (homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia), is marketed by Genzyme (a Sanofi company) in the U.S. and other major markets.
Meanwhile, the company has a deep pipeline with several candidates in mid or final stages of development. Interesting candidates include ISIS-TTRRx (transthyretin amyloidosis – phase III), ISIS-SMNRx (spinal muscular atrophy in infants and children – phase III) and volanesorsen (familial chylomicronemia syndrome and partial lipodystrophy – phase III) among others.
In this scenario, investor focus remains on late-stage pipeline candidates and their commercial potential apart from the usual top-and bottom-line numbers.
Isis Pharma’s track record has been pretty good with the company having comfortably beaten estimates in the last three of the four quarters with an average positive earnings surprise of 34.08%. Moreover, estimate revisions are mostly positive with analysts narrowing their loss estimates for 2015.
Currently, Isis Pharma has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) but that could definitely change following the company’s earnings report which was just released. We have highlighted some of the key stats from this just-revealed announcement below:
Earnings: Isis Pharma’s second-quarter 2015 earnings failed to beat the estimates. The company reported EPS of 29 cents while our consensus called for EPS of 34 cents.
Revenues: Revenues also fell short of expectations. Isis Pharma posted revenues of $120.4 million, compared to our consensus estimate of $126 million.
Key Stats: Isis Pharma and AstraZeneca have teamed up yet again – this time to discover and develop antisense therapies for cardiovascular, metabolic and renal diseases. Under the deal, Isis Pharma will receive a $65 million upfront payment from AstraZeneca including development and regulatory milestones for each program that AstraZeneca advances into clinical development plus royalties. In addition, Isis Pharma announced positive data from a phase III study (FOCUS FH ) on Kynamro.
Check back later for our full write up on this ISIS earnings report later!
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