Swap­ping stock and cash, Io­n­is turns to close­ly-con­trolled Akcea for a deal on spurned drug in­ot­ersen

Last year, af­ter Glax­o­SmithK­line un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly dumped its part­ner­ship with Io­n­is on in­ot­ersen and a fol­low-up rare dis­ease ther­a­py, the chief busi­ness of­fi­cer at the biotech said that she was in talks with mul­ti­ple po­ten­tial part­ners in­ter­est­ed in tak­ing GSK’s place.

To­day, Io­n­is un­veiled the win­ning play­er at the bar­gain­ing ta­ble: Akcea, an af­fil­i­ate of Io­n­is, which owns a con­trol­ling in­ter­est in its stock. And Sarah Boyce, the CBO in charge of the talks at Io­n­is, is now trans­fer­ring over to be­come pres­i­dent of Akcea as it preps a like­ly com­mer­cial launch in the US and Eu­rope.

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