Ionis Pharmaceuticals reports Q1 EPS (87c), consensus (91c)

Reports Q1 revenue $131M, consensus $128.12M. As of March 31 Ionis’ cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments increased to $2.3B compared to $2.0B at December 31, 2022 primarily due to the $500M Ionis received from Royalty Pharma in January. "2023 is off to a strong start. With QALSODY’s approval, it joins SPINRAZA as a new groundbreaking medicine to treat a devastating neurological disease, further validating our RNA-targeting therapeutic platform. We also achieved another important milestone with our recent positive eplontersen Phase 3 data. We believe the positive efficacy and safety data, and the attractive self-administered dosing profile, position eplontersen to be an important treatment for ATTRv-PN patients, who today are underserved. We look forward to the first potential approval of eplontersen in the U.S. in December," said Brett P. Monia, CEO."In addition, we further expanded our industry-leading late-stage pipeline to seven programs across nine indications following the start of GSK’s bepirovirsen hepatitis B program. In the second half, we plan to report results from our olezarsen Phase 3 FCS study, which if positive, positions us for our first independent commercial launch. These recent achievements, together with our upcoming milestones, continue to build value for Ionis stakeholders."