Collaborative Arrangements and Licensing Agreements

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2023

Collaborative Arrangements and Licensing Agreements [Abstract]

Collaborative Arrangements and Licensing Agreements

4.  Collaborative Arrangements and Licensing Agreements

Below, we have included our Biogen and GSK collaborations, which are our only collaborations with substantive changes during 2023 from those included in Part IV, Item 15, Note 7 of our audited financial statements included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022.

Biogen

We have several strategic collaborations with Biogen focused on using antisense technology to advance the treatment of neurological disorders. We developed and licensed to Biogen SPINRAZA, our approved medicine to treat people with spinal muscular atrophy, or SMA. Under our 2013 strategic neurology collaboration, Biogen developed QALSODY (tofersen), our recently approved medicine to treat people with superoxide dismutase 1 amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or SOD1-ALS. We and Biogen are currently developing numerous investigational medicines to treat neurodegenerative diseases under these collaborations, including medicines in development to treat people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, SMA, Angelman Syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. In addition to these medicines, our collaborations with Biogen include a substantial research pipeline that addresses a broad range of neurological diseases. From inception through March 31, 2023, we have received more than $3.5 billion in payments from our Biogen collaborations.

In the first quarter of 2023, we earned a $10 million milestone payment from Biogen when we advanced ION582 under our 2012 neurology collaboration. We will recognize revenue as we perform services based on our effort to satisfy our research and development, or R&D, services performance obligation relative to the total effort expected to satisfy our performance obligation for ION582. We will achieve the next payment of up to $25 million if Biogen advances another medicine under our 2012 neurology collaboration.

During the three months ended March 31, 2023 and 2022, we earned the following revenue from our relationship with Biogen (in thousands, except percentage amounts):

	Three Months Ended March 31,
	2023			2022
SPINRAZA royalties (commercial revenue)	$	50,247		$	53,818
R&D revenue		20,254			40,049
Total revenue from our relationship with Biogen	$	70,501		$	93,867
Percentage of total revenue		54	%		66	%

In April 2023, we earned a $16 million milestone payment from Biogen when the FDA approved Biogen’s New Drug Application, or NDA, for QALSODY. We will achieve the next payment of up to $20 million if Biogen advances a medicine under the 2013 strategic neurology collaboration.

Our condensed consolidated balance sheets at March 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022 included deferred revenue of $340.9 million and $351.2 million, respectively, from our relationship with Biogen.

GSK

In March 2010, we entered into a collaboration with GSK using our antisense drug discovery platform to discover and develop new medicines against targets for serious and rare diseases, including infectious diseases and some conditions causing blindness. Our collaboration with GSK currently includes bepirovirsen, our medicine in development targeting hepatitis B virus, or HBV. We designed this medicine to reduce the production of viral proteins associated with HBV infection. In the third quarter of 2019, following positive Phase 2 results, GSK licensed our HBV program. GSK is responsible for all global development, regulatory and commercialization activities and costs for the HBV program. From inception through March 31, 2023, we have received more than $105 million in an upfront payment and payments related to the HBV program.

In the first quarter of 2023, we earned a $15 million milestone payment when GSK initiated a Phase 3 program of bepirovirsen. We recognized this milestone payment as R&D revenue in full in the first quarter of 2023 because we did not have any remaining performance obligations related to the milestone payment. We will achieve the next payment of $15 million if the FDA accepts an NDA filing of bepirovirsen for review.

During the three months ended March 31, 2023 and 2022, we earned the following revenue from our relationship with GSK (in thousands, except percentage amounts):

	Three Months Ended March 31,
	2023			2022
R&D revenue	$	15,000		$	—
Percentage of total revenue		11	%		—

We did not have any deferred revenue from our relationship with GSK at March 31, 2023 or December 31, 2022.