Intellectual Property

We have a broad patent portfolio covering our products and technologies. We believe our patent estate represents the largest and most valuable nucleic acid therapeutics oriented patent estate in the pharmaceutical industry.

We maintain intellectual property positions in:

• specific antisense drugs, including numerous nucleic acid sequences, chemical modifications, and designs
• therapeutic methods of using antisense drugs to treat numerous diseases
• oligonucleotide chemical modifications
• antisense drug designs optimized for numerous different mechanisms of action
• other clinically relevant discoveries related to antisense technology
• formulation advances and commercial-scale manufacturing of antisense drugs.

This patent estate is a valuable asset to us and our shareholders, as it protects our inventions in RNA-based drug discovery and our drugs, and encourages revenue-generating partnerships. We maintain our competitive advantage in the field of antisense technology by protecting our core platform technology and by creating multiple layers of patent protections for each of our drugs.

While the principal purpose of our intellectual property is to protect our products and those of our partners, our intellectual property is also a strategic asset that we exploit to generate near-term revenues and that we expect will also provide us with revenue in the future. As of March 31, 2012, we have generated over $400 million from our intellectual property sale and licensing program that helps support our internal drug discovery and development programs.