Carlsbad, CA-based Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:IONS) is a drug discovery and development company that focuses on the development of products using ribonucleic acid (RNA)-based technologies. The company discovers new drugs and out-licenses them to partners for license fees, milestone payments, and royalties. Ionis has partnership agreements with several leading health care companies like Biogen (NASDAQ:BIIB) and GlaxoSmithKline among others.
In this quarter, the company received $270 million in upfront fees and milestone payments from its partners. Also, during the quarter the company submitted regulatory application for approval of volanesorsen in the United States and EU.
Ionis’ earnings track record has been mixed so far. Over the four trailing quarters, the company posted an average positive earnings surprise of 21.9%, having beaten estimates in two quarters and missed the same twice.
Currently, Ionis 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: Ionis reported a breakeven earnings including stock based compensation which missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of earnings of 2 cents. However, excluding stock based compensation the company reported earnings of 13 cents.
Revenues: Ionis posted revenues of $120.9 million, missing the consensus estimate of $129.48 million.
Key Stats: Research, development and patent expenses amounted to $80.2 million, down 5.2% year over year. General and administrative expenses increased almost 163% year over year to $26.8 million on increased costs related to commercialization of volanesorsen and inotersen, and increase in fees related to in-licensing of Spinraza. Spinraza saw strong uptake with $271 million in sales in this quarter, up 33.5% sequentially.
2017 Outlook: The company expects the operating expenses to increase sequentially in the fourth quarter due to costs related to launch of inotersen and volanesorsen.
Share Market Activity: Share price are down 0.02% in pre-market trading.
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Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (IONS): Free Stock Analysis Report
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