Carlsbad drugmaker Isis Pharmaceuticals announced that it is changing its name to Ionis Pharmaceuticals.
While it didn’t spell out the reason for the name change, ISIS is also the acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist group.
While the company did not mention the terrorist group in its recent news release, Chief Operating Officer Lynne Parshall alluded to the company’s reasoning.
“Our goal is to create medicines that will save patients’ lives, and we are proud to be at the forefront of creating innovative medicines,” Parshall said. “We decided to change our company name because, when people see or hear our name, we want them to think about the lifesaving medicines we are developing.”
The company is also changing its Nasdaq stock symbol from ISIS to IONS, and its website address to www.ionispharma.com.
The name change and stock symbol change takes place on December 22, according to a news release.
