Akcea Therapeutics Soars on Licensing Agreement with Pfizer

Shares of Akcea Therapeutics were exploding on Monday after the company revealed that it had signed a licensing agreement with Pfizer for its treatment for people with certain metabolic and cardiovascular diseases.

The stock saw a jump as much as 48% on Monday as Wall Street reacted to the news.

According to the company’s release, the agreement with Pfizer is for a worldwide exclusive licensing agreement for AKCEA-ANGPTL3-L, which helps to reduce the production of angiopoietin-like 3 (ANGPTL3) protein in the liver, “a key regulator of triglycerides, cholesterol, glucose and energy metabolism.”

The treatment is currently being evaluated in a Phase 2 study in patients with Type 2 diabetes, hypertriglyceridemia and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

“AKCEA-ANGPTL3-L has the potential to treat people suffering from certain cardiovascular and metabolic diseases,” said Dr. Damien McDevitt, interim CEO.

“Given the unmet medical need for this patient population and the broad market potential, we believe Pfizer’s expertise and breadth of experience in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases makes it well suited to accelerate clinical development of AKCEA-ANGPTL3-LRx, and to deliver it to patients in need of additional therapies for these life-threatening diseases.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.