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- Isis will own 18 percent of Altair and will receive milestones and

royalties on antisense drugs developed by Altair

- Altair to conduct clinical development of ISIS 369645 for asthma

    CARLSBAD, Calif. and SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
 Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq:   ISIS) and Thomas, McNerney & Partners,
 LLC, announced today that Altair Therapeutics Inc., a new venture
 capital-funded biotechnology company, has been created to focus on the
 discovery, development and commercialization of Isis' antisense drugs to
 treat asthma and other respiratory conditions. Isis has granted an
 exclusive worldwide license to Altair for the development and
 commercialization of ISIS 369645, an inhaled inhibitor of the IL-4/IL-13
 signaling pathways for the treatment of asthma. Isis and Altair will also
 be collaborating to discover drugs directed to other promising targets for
 the treatment of respiratory conditions. Isis will own 18 percent of Altair
 in the form of preferred stock. Furthermore, as ISIS 369645 and other drugs
 arising out of the research collaboration progress, Altair will pay Isis
 development milestones and royalties.
     "Altair is assembling a focused team of experts in both antisense drug
 discovery and development and respiratory conditions to advance antisense
 drugs, including ISIS 369645," said Jeff Jonas, M.D., Executive Vice
 President of Isis. "Our robust antisense technology allows us to continue
 to discover and validate many more drug candidates than we can advance
 ourselves. Altair is the most recent example of our satellite company
 strategy; through this strategy we expand therapeutic applications for
 antisense drugs while focusing our internal resources in our therapeutic
 focus areas in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases."
     "We are pleased to be working with Isis, a leader in the discovery and
 development of RNA-based therapeutics," stated Pratik Shah, Ph.D., partner
 at Thomas, McNerney & Partners, which structured and led the licensing and
 financing transactions for Altair. "Asthma continues to be an area of unmet
 medical need and we believe ISIS 369645 has the potential to provide
 significant benefit to patients. There have been a number of recent
 clinical successes and validating corporate partnerships that make this
 space exciting."
     "A key component of our business strategy is to exploit the broad
 applicability of our antisense technology platform and our intellectual
 property position to add to our pipeline of promising antisense drugs that
 target a broad range of diseases," said B. Lynne Parshall, Executive Vice
 President and CFO of Isis. "To best accomplish this, we have created and
 partnered with numerous emerging biotech companies focused on exploiting
 antisense technology toward new biological areas or particular diseases,
 providing them with access to our technology, intellectual property or
 licenses to certain of our drugs. Altair is now joining the ranks of these
 partners, which include Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, OncoGenex Technologies,
 Regulus Therapeutics, ATL, iCo Therapeutics and others. We believe that
 each of these partners is a highly dedicated, innovative company through
 which we are aggressively furthering the development of antisense drugs,
 expanding the breadth of our product pipeline, and creating value, while
 staying focused on our internal drug discovery and development activities
 and core technology expansion."
     About Altair Therapeutics
     Altair was founded by Thomas, McNerney & Partners and is building a
 dedicated team, combining antisense drug discovery expertise with
 respiratory drug development expertise, to focus solely on the development
 and commercialization of antisense drugs for the treatment of asthma and
 other respiratory conditions. More information on Altair is available at
 http://www.altairtherapeutics.com.
     About ISIS 369645
     ISIS 369645 is an antisense drug that acts as an inhibitor of the
 IL-4/IL-13 cytokine signaling pathways, which play an important role in
 asthma. In preclinical studies, inhibition of IL-4/IL-13 signaling pathways
 reduced lung cytokine production, inflammation, and airway
 hyper-responsiveness and when delivered by inhalation can rapidly
 distribute to target tissues at therapeutic doses.
     About Thomas, McNerney & Partners
     Thomas, McNerney & Partners, LLC, is a health care private equity firm
 that invests in life science and medical technology companies. Employing a
 multi-stage investment approach, Thomas, McNerney & Partners has just under
 $600 million in assets under management and provides seed and early stage
 funding to help entrepreneurs launch companies, as well as growth capital
 to emerging companies for furthering clinical development or for expansion
 of product commercialization. For more information, please visit
 http://www.tm-partners.com .
     ABOUT ISIS PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.
     Isis is exploiting its expertise in RNA to discover and develop novel
 drugs for its product pipeline and for its partners. The Company has
 successfully commercialized the world's first antisense drug and has 17
 drugs in development. Isis' drug development programs are focused on
 treating cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Isis' partners are
 developing drugs for a wide variety of diseases. Ibis Biosciences, Inc.,
 Isis' wholly owned subsidiary, is developing and commercializing the Ibis
 T5000(TM) Biosensor System, a revolutionary system to identify infectious
 organisms. As an innovator in RNA-based drug discovery and development,
 Isis is the owner or exclusive licensee of over 1,500 issued patents
 worldwide. Additional information about Isis is available at
 http://www.isispharm.com.
     This press release includes forward-looking statements regarding Isis'
 business, its partnership strategies, and the future therapeutic and
 commercial potential of ISIS 369645 and Isis' antisense technologies. Any
 statement describing Isis' goals, expectations, financial or other
 projections, intentions or beliefs is a forward-looking statement and
 should be considered an at-risk statement, including those statements that
 are described as Isis' goals or projections. Such statements are subject to
 certain risks and uncertainties, particularly those inherent in the process
 of discovering, developing and commercializing drugs that are safe and
 effective for use as human therapeutics, in developing and commercializing
 systems to identify infectious organisms that are effective and
 commercially attractive, and in the endeavor of building a business around
 such products. Isis' forward-looking statements also involve assumptions
 that, if they never materialize or prove correct, could cause its results
 to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such
 forward-looking statements. Although Isis' forward-looking statements
 reflect the good faith judgment of its management, these statements are
 based only on facts and factors currently known by Isis. As a result, you
 are cautioned not to rely on these forward- looking statements. These and
 other risks concerning Isis' programs are described in additional detail in
 Isis' annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006, and
 its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2007,
 which are on file with the SEC. Copies of this and other documents are
 available from the Company.
     In this press release, unless the context requires otherwise, "Isis,"
 "Company," "we," "our," and "us" refers to Isis Pharmaceuticals and its
 subsidiaries.
     Isis Pharmaceuticals, Ibis Biosciences and Ibis T5000 are registered
 trademarks or trademarks of Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
 
 

SOURCE Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.