Akcea Therapeutics, Inc. and Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced that data from the Phase 2 study of AKCEA-APOCIII-LRx will be presented in a Late Breaking Clinical Trial Session at the upcoming ESC Congress 2020, the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology, which is expected to be the world's largest online gathering of cardiovascular professionals, taking place August 29-September 1, 2020. AKCEA-APOCIII-LRx is an antisense drug developed using Ionis' proprietary Ligand Conjugated Antisense (LICA) technology platform and is designed to reduce the production of apolipoprotein C-III (apoC-III), a protein produced in the liver that plays a central role in the regulation of serum triglycerides. AKCEA-APOCIII-LRx was discovered by Ionis and has been co-developed by Akcea and Ionis.

A prior Phase 1/2 study of AKCEA-APOCIII-LRx in healthy volunteers with elevated triglyceride levels showed dose-dependent reductions in apoC-III, triglycerides and atherogenic lipoproteins, and increase in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) following treatment.