#JPM24 quick hits: Io­n­is on part­ner­ship’s pros and cons; No­vo Ven­tures has $600M to spend; Are small mol­e­cules back? + more

SAN FRAN­CIS­CO — The bio­phar­ma ex­trav­a­gan­za that is the JP Mor­gan Health­care Con­fer­ence start­ed to wind down Wednes­day. Here’s what we’re hear­ing on Wednes­day around San Fran­cis­co:

Io­n­is is ready to go so­lo — Af­ter 35 years in the drug de­vel­op­ment world, the an­ti­sense biotech is itch­ing to mar­ket its own drug, should olezarsen re­ceive an FDA green­light this year for fa­mil­ial chy­lomi­crone­mia syn­drome, which can lead to pan­cre­ati­tis and car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease. “Be­ing able to con­trol your own des­tiny, if you will, and not be re­liant on a part­ner — who can do a good job, but some­times they change pri­or­i­ties or they don’t know your drug as well as you be­cause you took it through the whole jour­ney — is a big, big ad­van­tage,” CEO Brett Mo­nia told End­points News. The com­pa­ny’s al­so cur­rent­ly work­ing on its first co-com­mer­cial­iza­tion launch with As­traZeneca for the re­cent­ly ap­proved AT­TR polyneu­ropa­thy drug Wain­ua. — Kyle LaHu­cik

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