Upside Purchased on Isis Pharma (ISIS)

Shares of Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISIS) are lower on the session by 1.56%, currently trading at $8.19. The stock has been moving largely lower over the past six months, off of a recent high near $11.25.

Options traders are betting that the stock may be at a longer-term bottom and are buying calls. A short while ago the January 2012 $10.00 call was purchased 824 times, on the offer, on open interest of 1,036 contracts.

Though the trade was small, this pushed overall call volume to 3.5x the daily average, 80% on the offer.

Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is engaged in antisense technology, exploiting a drug discovery platform created to generate first-in-class drugs. The company operates in two business segments: Drug Discovery and Development, and Regulus Therapeutics Inc. Within the drug discovery and development segment, Isis is exploiting a drug discovery platform created to generate a range of first-in-class drugs for the company and its partners.

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