Isis Pharmaceutical changes name to Ionis

US biotech company Isis Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ISIS) announced that the company has changed its name to Ionis Pharmaceuticals and will trade on the Nasdaq under the new IONS ticker symbol.

"Our goal is to create medicines that will save patients' lives, and we are proud to be at the forefront of creating innovative medicines," said Lynne Parshall, chief operating officer at Ionis Pharmaceuticals.  "We decided to change our company name because, when people see or hear our name, we want them to think about the life-saving medicines we are developing."

The name ISIS was chosen as being the name more than a quarter of a century ago, of the Egyptian/Greek Goddess of health, but the acronym is the same as that of the extremist Islamic State, although this was not explicitly mentioned by the company as the reason for the change.