A Buy recommendation has recently been issued to pharmaceutical company Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ISIS) by Zacks senior pharmaceutical industry analyst Jason Napodano, CFA.  Here's what his latest update had to say:

'We are reiterating our rating on Isis Pharmaceuticals of a Buy and increasing our price target to $17. We believe that antisense technology represents an exciting and potentially revolutionary platform for developing therapeutic candidates to treat a wide margin of diseases. In our view, antisense as a platform is today where biologics were ten years ago.

'We continue to rate shares of Isis Pharmaceuticals a Buy. We have recently increased our price target to $17, up from $15, following the announcement of a collaboration with Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). We are big fans of antisense technology and believe that the number of potential therapeutic applications is enormous. Antisense drugs may have significant potential to treat a number of diseases where small molecule and biologic compounds have failed.

'Although still early stage, antisense technology with potential mechanisms such as siRNA, RNAi, alternate splicing, and microRNA have the potential to change how we treat disease in the next decade. The promise of biologic drugs is finally delivering with blockbuster compounds such as Rituxan, Herceptin, Avastin, Synagis, and Humira. We think in ten years the same will be said for antisense.

'The company has already commercialized the first antisense drug in 1998 with Vitravene. We think that by 2011 two to three additional antisense drugs developed by Isis could be on the market. Our $17 target is derived by discounting our 2011 EPS of $1.48 back to present day at 20% using a 25x multiple.'