Janssen Licenses Ionis Drug for GI Autoimmune Disease

Janssen Biotech, Inc. has licensed Ionis Pharmaceuticals’ IONIS-JBI1-2.5Rx, an oral antisense drug for the treatment of a GI autoimmune disease, for $10 million. Janssen will assume all global development, regulatory and commercialization responsibilities after Ionis completes the IND-enabling studies.
 
Ionis is eligible to receive as much as $800 million in development, regulatory and sales milestones and license fees for three programs, as well as royalties on sales from any product that is successfully commercialized. 
 
“IONIS-JBI1-2.5Rx is the first antisense drug to enter development as part of Ionis’ collaboration with Janssen to discover and develop orally administered, locally acting RNA-targeted therapeutics for autoimmune diseases in the gastrointestinal tract.  We are very pleased to have rapidly advanced this first drug candidate into development within a year and a half of initiating our collaboration with Janssen,” said B. Lynne Parshall, chief operating officer at Ionis Pharmaceuticals.  “This new drug further expands our technology’s reach into a new therapeutic setting and a new route of delivery.”