We prepared the unaudited interim condensed consolidated financial statements for the three and six months ended June 30, 2020March 31, 2021 and 20192020 on the same basis as the audited financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2019.2020, with the exception of our retrospective adoption of Accounting Standards Update, or ASU, 2020-06, which simplifies the accounting for convertible debt instruments. See Note 2, Significant Accounting Polices, Convertible Debt, for details of our adoption of this guidance. We included all normal recurring adjustments in the financial statements, which we considered necessary for a fair presentation of our financial position at such dates and our operating results and cash flows for those periods. Our operating results for the interim periods may not be indicative of what our operating results will be for the entire year. For more complete financial information, these financial statements, and notes thereto, should be read in conjunction with the audited financial statements for the year ended December 31, 20192020 included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC.

In theour condensed consolidated financial statements, we included the accounts of Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and the consolidated results of our majority-owned affiliate,wholly owned subsidiary, Akcea Therapeutics, Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiaries.subsidiaries (“we”, “us” or “our”). We formed Akcea in December 2014. In July 2017, Akcea completed an initial public offering, or IPO. Since Akcea’s IPO, our ownership has ranged from 68 percent to 77 percent. At June 30, 2020,which reduced our ownership of Akcea’s common stock below 100 percent. In October 2020, we acquired the shares of Akcea’s common stock we did not own. We will refer to this transaction as the Akcea was approximately 76 percent. Acquisition throughout the remainder of this document. We reflectreflected changes in our ownership of Akceapercentage in our financial statements as an adjustment to noncontrolling interest in the period the change occurs. For example, we reflected an increase in our ownership when we received 6.9 million shares of Akcea common stock as payment for the sublicense fee Akcea owed us for Pfizer’s license of vupanorsen (formerly AKCEA-ANGPTL3-L_Rx)in the fourth quarter of 2019.

We generally recognize revenue when we have satisfied all contractual obligations and are reasonably assured of collecting the resulting receivable. We are often entitled to bill our customers and receive payment from our customers in advance of recognizing the revenue. In the instances in which we have received payment from our customers in advance of recognizing revenue, we include the amounts in deferred revenue on our condensed consolidated balance sheet.

We earn commercial revenue primarily in the form of royalty payments on net sales of SPINRAZA. We will also recognize as commercial revenue sales milestone payments and royalties we earn in the future under our other partnerships.

We added product sales from TEGSEDI to our commercial revenue inIn the fourthUnited States, or U.S., through the first quarter of 2018 and2021, we added product sales from WAYLIVRA to our commercial revenue in the third quarter of 2019. In the U.S., we distributesold TEGSEDI through an exclusive distribution agreement with a third-party logistics company, or 3PL, that takestook title to TEGSEDI. The 3PL iswas our sole customer in the U.S. The 3PL then distributesdistributed TEGSEDI to a specialty pharmacy and a specialty distributor, which we collectively refer to as wholesalers, who then distributedistributed TEGSEDI to health care providers and patients. In Europe, prior to the third quarter of 2019through 2020, we distributed TEGSEDI through a non-exclusive distribution model with a 3PL that took title to TEGSEDI. The 3PL was our sole customer in Europe. The 3PL in Europe then distributed TEGSEDI to hospitals and pharmacies. In the third quarter of 2019, we began using distributors to sell bothsold TEGSEDI and WAYLIVRA directly to hospitals and pharmacies, which were our customers, using 3PLs as distributors. In January 2021, we began commercializing TEGSEDI and WAYLIVRA in Europe.Europe through a distribution agreement with Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB, or Sobi. In April 2021, we expanded our distribution agreement with Sobi to also include commercializing TEGSEDI in North America. Under our agreements, we are responsible for supplying finished goods inventory to Sobi and Sobi is responsible for selling each medicine to the end customer. As a result of these agreements, we earn a distribution fee on net sales from Sobi for each medicine.

We often enter into collaboration agreements to license and sell our technology on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis. Our collaboration agreements typically contain multiple elements, or performance obligations, including technology licenses or options to obtain technology licenses, research and development, or R&D, services, and manufacturing services.

In See Note 5, Collaborative Arrangements and Licensing Agreements, for collaborations with substantive changes that occurred in 2021. Additionally, see Note 6, Collaborative Arrangements and Licensing Agreements, we have included our collaborations with substantive changes during the first half of 2020 from those included in Note 6 of our audited financial statements included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019.2020 for a summary of each of our material collaborative agreements.

We use a five-step process to determine the amount of revenue we should recognize and when we should recognize it. The five-step process is as follows:

We next identify our performance obligations, which represent the distinct goods and services we are required to provide under the contract. We typically have only 1 performance obligation at the inception of a contract, which is to perform R&D services.

Often times we enter into a collaboration agreement in which we provide our partner with an option to license a medicine in the future. We may also provide our partner with an option to request that we provide additional goods or services in the future, such as active pharmaceutical ingredient, or API. We evaluate whether these options are material rights at the inception of the agreement. If we determine an option is a material right, we will consider the option a separate performance obligation. Historically, we have concluded that the options we grant to license a medicine in the future or to provide additional goods and services as requested by our partner are not material rights because these items are contingent upon future events that may not occur.occur and are not priced at a significant discount. When a partner exercises its option to license a medicine or requests additional goods or services, then we identify a new performance obligation for that item.

In some cases, we deliver a license at the start of an agreement. If we determine that our partner has full use of the license and we do not have any additional material performance obligations related to the license after delivery, then we consider the license to be a separate performance obligation.

We then determine the transaction price by reviewing the amount of consideration we are eligible to earn under the collaboration agreement, including any variable consideration. Under our collaboration agreements, consideration typically includes fixed consideration in the form of an upfront payment and variable consideration in the form of potential milestone payments, license fees and royalties. At the start of an agreement, our transaction price usually consists of only the upfront payment. We do not typically include any payments we may receive in the future in our initial transaction price because the payments are not probable and are contingent on certain future events. We reassess the total transaction price at each reporting period to determine if we should include additional payments in the transaction price.

Milestone payments are our most common type of variable consideration. We recognize milestone payments using the most likely amount method because we will either receive the milestone payment or we will not, which makes the potential milestone payment a binary event. The most likely amount method requires us to determine the likelihood of earning the milestone payment. We include a milestone payment in the transaction price once it is probable we will achieve the milestone event. Most often, we do not consider our milestone payments probable until we or our partner achieve the milestone event because the majority of our milestone payments are contingent upon events that are not within our control andand/ or are usually based on scientific progress.progress which is inherently uncertain. For example, in the firstfourth quarter of 2020, we earned a $10$20 million milestone payment from AstraZeneca when AstraZeneca advanced ION532initiated a Phase 2b study for ION449, our medicine in development targeting APOL1 for the treatment of kidney disease under our cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases collaboration.PCSK9 to lower LDL-cholesterol. We did not consider the milestone payment probable until AstraZeneca achieved the milestone event because advancing ION532ION449 was contingent on AstraZeneca initiating a contingent event thatPhase 2b study and was not within our control. We recognized the milestone payment in full in the period the milestone event was achieved because we did not have any remaining performance obligations related to the milestone payment.

Next, we allocate the transaction price to each of our performance obligations. When we have to allocate the transaction price to more than one performance obligation, we make estimates of the relative stand-alone selling price of each performance obligation because we do not typically sell our goods or services on a stand-alone basis. We then allocate the transaction price to each performance obligation based on the relative stand-alone selling price. We do not reallocate the transaction price after the start of an agreement to reflect subsequent changes in stand-alone selling prices.

We may engage a third party, independent valuation specialist to assist us with determining a stand-alone selling price for collaborations in which we deliver a license at the start of an agreement. We estimate the stand-alone selling price of these licenses using valuation methodologies, such as the relief from royalty method. Under this method, we estimate the amount of income, net of taxes, for the license. We then discount the projected income to present value. The significant inputs we use to determine the projected income of a license could include:

We typically estimate the selling price of R&D services by using our internal estimates of the cost to perform the specific services. The significant inputs we use to determine the selling price of our R&D services include:

For purposes of determining the stand-alone selling price of the R&D services we perform and the API we will deliver, accounting guidance requires us to include a markup for a reasonable profit margin.

We recognize revenue in one of two ways, over time or at a point in time. We recognize revenue over time when we are executing on our performance obligation over time and our partner receives benefit over time. For example, we recognize revenue over time when we provide R&D services. We recognize revenue at a point in time when our partner receives full use of an item at a specific point in time. For example, we recognize revenue at a point in time when we deliver a license or API to a partner.

For R&D services that we recognize over time, we measure our progress using an input method. The input methods we use are based on the effort we expend or costs we incur toward the satisfaction of our performance obligation. We estimate the amount of effort we expend, including the time we estimate it will take us to complete the activities, or costs we incur in a given period, relative to the estimated total effort or costs to satisfy the performance obligation. This results in a percentage that we multiply by the transaction price to determine the amount of revenue we recognize each period. This approach requires us to make numerous estimates and use significant judgement. If our estimates or judgements change over the course of the collaboration, they may affect the timing and amount of revenue that we recognize in the current and future periods. For example, in the third quarter of 2019, we updated our estimate of the total effort we expected to expend to satisfy our performance obligation under our 2013 Strategic Neurology collaboration with Biogen. As of September 30, 2019, we had completed a significant portion of the research and development services. In this example, we expected to complete the remainder of our services in 2020. As a result of our change in estimate, in the third quarter of 2019, we recorded a cumulative catch up adjustment of $16.5 million to decrease revenue. Refer to Note 6, Collaborative Arrangements and Licensing Agreements, in our audited financial statements included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019 for further discussion of the cumulative catch up adjustment we made in 2019.

We recognize royalty revenue, including royalties from SPINRAZA sales, in the period in which the counterparty sells the related product and recognizes the related revenue, which in certain cases may require us to estimate our royalty revenue.

We recognize product salesPrior to our distribution agreement with Sobi, we recognized TEGSEDI and WAYLIVRA commercial revenue in the period when our customer obtainsobtained control of our products, which occursoccurred at a point in time upon transfer of title to the customer. We classifyclassified payments to customers or other parties in the distribution channel for services that arewere distinct and priced at fair value as selling, general and administrative, or SG&A, expenses in our condensed consolidated statements of operations. Otherwise,We classified payments to customers or other parties in the distribution channel that dodid not meet those criteria are classified as a reduction of revenue, as discussed further below. We excludeexcluded from revenues taxes collected from customers relating to product salesTEGSEDI and WAYLIVRA commercial revenue and remitted these amounts to governmental authorities.

ReservesUnder our distribution agreement with Sobi we concluded that our performance obligation is to supply finished goods inventory to Sobi. This performance obligation is a series of distinct activities that are substantially the same because we transfer title using the same criteria each time we ship inventory to Sobi. Therefore, we recognize as revenue the price Sobi pays us for Productthe inventory when we deliver the finished goods inventory to Sobi. We also recognize distribution fee revenue based on Sobi’s net sales of TEGSEDI and WAYLIVRA. Additionally, Sobi does not generally have a right of return.

Prior to our distribution agreement with Sobi, we recorded TEGSEDI and WAYLIVRA commercial revenue at our net sales price, or transaction price. We includeincluded in our transaction price estimated reserves for discounts, returns, chargebacks, rebates co-pay assistance and other allowances that we offeroffered within contracts between us and our customers, wholesalers, distributors, health care providers and other indirect customers. We estimateestimated our reserves using the amounts we have earned or what we cancould claim on the associated sales. We classifyclassified our reserves as a reduction of accounts receivable when we arewere not required to make a payment or as a current liability when we arewere required to make a payment. In certain cases, our estimates includeincluded a range of possible outcomes that are probability-weightedwere probability weighted for relevant factors such as our historical experience, current contractual and statutory requirements, specific known market events and trends, industry data and forecasted customer buying and payment patterns. Overall, our reserves reflectreflected our best estimates under the terms of our respective contracts. When calculating our reserves and related product sales,TEGSEDI and WAYLIVRA commercial revenue, we only recognizerecognized amounts to the extent that we considerconsidered it probable that we would not have to reverse in a future period a significant amount of the cumulative sales we previously recognized.recognized in a future period. The actual amounts we receive may ultimately differ from our reserve estimates. If actual amounts in the future vary from our estimates, we will adjust these estimates, which would affect our net product salesTEGSEDI and WAYLIVRA revenue in the respectivecorresponding period. See our revenue recognition policy in Note 1, Organization and Significant Accounting Policies, of our audited financial statements included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020 for additional details regarding how we accounted for the reserves related to TEDSEDI and WAYLIVIRA product sales.

When we enter into a collaboration agreement with an upfront payment, we typically record the entire upfront payment as deferred revenue if our only performance obligation is for R&D services we will provide in the future. We amortize the upfront payment into revenue as we perform the R&D services. For example, under our collaboration agreement with Roche to develop IONIS-FB-L_Rx for the treatment of complement-mediated diseases,, we received a $75 million upfront payment in the fourth quarter of 2018. We allocated the upfront payment to our single performance obligation, R&D services. We are amortizing the $75 million upfront payment using an input method over the estimated period of time we are providing R&D services.

We are required to include additional consideration in the transaction price when it is probable. We typically include milestone payments for R&D services in the transaction price when they are achieved. We include these milestone payments when they are achieved because typically there is considerable uncertainty in the research and development processes that trigger these payments. Similarly, we include approval milestone payments in the transaction price once the medicine is approved by the applicable regulatory agency. We will recognize sales-based milestone payments in the period in which we achieve the milestone under the sales-based royalty exception allowed under accounting rules.

We recognize milestone payments that relate to an ongoing performance obligation over our period of performance. For example, in the firstfourth quarter of 2020, we achieved a $7.5 million milestone payment from Biogen when we advanced IONIS-MAPT_Rx a target under our 2012 neurology2018 strategic collaboration. We added this payment to the transaction price and allocated it to our R&D services performance obligation for IONIS-MAPT_Rx.obligation. We are recognizing revenue related to this milestone payment over our estimated period of performance.

Conversely, we recognize in full those milestone payments that we earn based on our partners’ activities when our partner achieves the milestone event and we do not have a performance obligation. For example, in the firstthird quarter of 2020, we recognized $18 million in milestone payments when Biogen initiated a $10 million milestone payment when AstraZeneca advanced ION532Phase 1/2 trial for ION464, our medicine in development targeting APOL1 for the treatment of kidney disease under our cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases collaboration agreement. alpha-synuclein to treat patients with multiple system atrophy. We concluded that the milestone payment waspayments were not related to our R&D services performance obligation. Therefore, we recognized the milestone paymentpayments in full in the firstthird quarter of 2020.

We generally recognize as revenue the total amount we determine to be the relative stand-alone selling price of a license when we deliver the license to our partner. This is because our partner has full use of the license and we do not have any additional performance obligations related to the license after delivery. For example, in the secondfourth quarter of 2020, we earned a $13$30 million license fee from AstraZeneca when AstraZeneca licensed ION736, aION455, an investigational medicine targeting FOXP3in development to treat cancer.nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH.

From time to time we amend our collaboration agreements. When this occurs, we are required to assess the following items to determine the accounting for the amendment:

If we conclude the goods and/or services in the amendment are distinct from the performance obligations in the original agreement and at a stand-alone selling price, we account for the amendment as a separate agreement. If we conclude the goods and/or services are not distinct and are sold at theira stand-alone selling price, we then assess whether the remaining goods or services are distinct from those already provided. If the goods and/or services are distinct from what we have already provided, then we allocate the remaining transaction price from the original agreement and the additional transaction price from the amendment to the remaining goods and/or services. If the goods and/or services are not distinct from what we have already provided, we update the transaction price for our single performance obligation and recognize any change in our estimated revenue as a cumulative adjustment.

From time to time, we may enter into separate agreements at or near the same time with the same partner. We evaluate such agreements to determine whether we should account for them individually as distinct arrangements or whether the separate agreements should be combined and accounted for together. We evaluate the following to determine the accounting for the agreements:

Our evaluation involves significant judgment to determine whether a group of agreements might be so closely related that accounting guidance requires us to account for them as a combined arrangement.

For example, in the second quarter of 2018, we entered into 2 separate agreements with Biogen at the same time: a new strategic neurology collaboration agreement and a stock purchase agreement, or SPA. We evaluated the Biogen agreements to determine whether we should treat the agreements separately or combine them. We considered that the agreements were negotiated concurrently and in contemplation of one another. Based on these facts and circumstances, we concluded that we should evaluate the provisions of the agreements on a combined basis.

Our contracts receivable balance represents the amounts we have billed our partners or customers and that are due to us unconditionally for goods we have delivered or services we have performed. When we bill our partners or customers with payment terms based on the passage of time, we consider the contractcontracts receivable to be unconditional. We typically receive payment within one quarter of billing our partner or customer.

Our unbilled SPINRAZA royalties represent our right to receive consideration from Biogen in advance of when we are eligible to bill Biogen for SPINRAZA royalties. We include these unbilled amounts in other current assets on our condensed consolidated balance sheet.

We are often entitled to bill our customers and receive payment from our customers in advance of our obligation to provide services or transfer goods to our partners. In these instances, we include the amounts in deferred revenue on our condensed consolidated balance sheet. During the three months ended June 30,March 31, 2021 and 2020, and 2019, we recognized $39.6$26.0 million and $46.9 million of revenue from amounts that were in our beginning deferred revenue balance for each respective period. During the six months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019, we recognized $61.9 million and $87.2$28.0 million of revenue from amounts that were in our beginning deferred revenue balance for each respective period. For further discussion, refer to our revenue recognition policy above.

Our cost of products soldsales includes manufacturing costs, transportation and freight costs and indirect overhead costs associated with the manufacturing and distribution of our products. We also may include certain period costs related to manufacturing services and inventory adjustments in cost of products sold. Prior to obtaining regulatory approval of TEGSEDI in July 2018 and WAYLIVRA in May 2019, we expensed as research and development expenses a significant portion of the costs we incurred to produce the initial commercial launch supply for each medicine.

We consider all liquid investments with maturities of three months or less when we purchase them to be cash equivalents. Our short-term investments have initial maturities of greater than three months from date of purchase. We classify our short-term debt investments as “available-for-sale” and carry them at fair market value based upon prices on the last day of the fiscal period for identical or similar items. We record unrealized gains and losses on debt securities as a separate component of comprehensive income (loss) and include net realized gains and losses in gain (loss) on investments.investments in our condensed consolidated statement of operations. We use the specific identification method to determine the cost of securities sold.

We also have equity investments of less than 20 percent ownership in publicly and privately held biotechnology companies that we received as part of a technology license or partner agreement. At June 30, 2020,March 31, 2021, we held equity investments in 2 publicly held companies, ProQR Therapeutics N.V., or ProQR, and Antisense Therapeutics Limited, or ATL. We also held equity investments in 5 privately-held7 privately held companies, Aro Biotherapeutics, Atlantic Pharmaceuticals Limited, Dynacure SAS, Empirico, Inc., Flamingo Therapeutics BV, Seventh Sense Biosystems and Suzhou RiboSuzhou-Ribo Life Science Co, Ltd.

We are required to measure and record our equity investments at fair value and to recognize the changes in fair value in our condensed consolidated statement of operations. We account for our equity investments in privately held companies at their cost minus impairments, plus or minus changes resulting from observable price changes in orderly transactions for the identical or similar investment of the same issuer. For example, during the second quarterand fourth quarters of 2020, we revalued our investments in two privately-held3 privately held companies, Dynacure, Suzhou-Ribo and RiboAro Biotherapeutics because the companies sold additional equity securities that were similar to thosethe equity we own. These observable price changes resulted in us recognizing a $6.3 million gain on our investment in Dynacure, and a $3$3.0 million gain on our investment in RiboSuzhou-Ribo and a $5.5 million gain on our investment in Aro Biotherapeutics in our condensed consolidated statement of operations during 2020 because the three months ended June 30, 2020.sales were at higher prices compared to our recorded value.

We reflect our inventory on our condensed consolidated balance sheet at the lower of cost or marketnet realizable value under the first-in, first-out method, or FIFO. We capitalize the costs of raw materials that we purchase for use in producing our medicines because until we use these raw materials, they have alternative future uses, which we refer to as clinical raw materials. We include in inventory raw material costs for medicines that we manufacture for our partners under contractual terms and that we use primarily in our clinical development activities and drug products. We can use each of our raw materials in multiple products and, as a result, each raw material has future economic value independent of the development status of any single medicine. For example, if one of our medicines failed, we could use the raw materials for that medicine to manufacture our other medicines. We expense these costs as R&D expenses when we begin to manufacture API for a particular medicine if the medicine has not been approved for marketing by a regulatory agency.

We obtained the first regulatory approval for TEGSEDI in July 2018 and for WAYLIVRA in May 2019. At June 30, 2020,March 31, 2021, our physical inventory for TEGSEDI and WAYLIVRA included API that we produced prior to when we obtained regulatory approval. As such, this API has no cost basis as we had previously expensed the costs as R&D expenses.

We review our inventory periodically and reduce the carrying value of items we consider to be slow moving or obsolete to their estimated net realizable value based on forecasted demand compared to quantities on hand. We consider several factors in estimating the net realizable value, including shelf life of our inventory, alternative uses for our medicines in development and historical write-offs. We did not record any materialrecorded an insignificant amount of inventory write-offs for the sixthree months ended June 30,March 31, 2021 and 2020. Total

Our inventory was $23.7 million and $18.2 million as of June 30, 2020 and December 31, 2019, respectively, and consisted of the following (in thousands):

We determine if an arrangement contains a lease at inception. We currently only have operating leases. We recognize a right-of-use operating lease asset and associated short- and long-term operating lease liability on our condensed consolidated balance sheet for operating leases greater than one year. Our right-of-use assets represent our right to use an underlying asset for the lease term and our lease liabilities represent our obligation to make lease payments arising from the lease arrangement. We recognize our right-of-use operating lease assets and lease liabilities based on the present value of the future minimum lease payments we will pay over the lease term.We determineddetermine the lease term at the inception of theeach lease, and in certain cases our lease term could include renewal options if we concluded we were reasonably certain that we will exercise the renewal option. When we exercise a lease option that was not previously included in the initial lease term, we reassess our right-of-use asset and lease liabilities for the new lease term.

As our current leases do not provide an interest rate implicit in the lease, we used our incremental borrowing rate, based on the information available on the date we adopted Topic 842 (January 2019) or, as of the lease inception date or at the lease option extension date in determining the present value of future payments. We recognize rent expense for our minimum lease payments on a straight-line basis over the expected term of our lease. We recognize period expenses, such as common area maintenance expenses, in the period we incur the expense.

Our research and development expenses include wages, benefits, facilities, supplies, external services, clinical trial and manufacturing costs and other expenses that are directly related to our research and development operations. We expense research and development costs as we incur them. When we make payments for research and development services prior to the services being rendered, we record those amounts as prepaid assets on our condensed consolidated balance sheet and we expense them as the services are provided.

We capitalize costs consisting principally of outside legal costs and filing fees related to obtaining patents. We amortize patent costs over the useful life of the patent, beginning with the date the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or foreign equivalent, issues the patent. We review our capitalized patent costs regularly to ensure that they include costs for patents and patent applications that have future value. When we identify patents and patent applications that we are not actively pursuing, we write off any associated costs.

We account for income taxes using the asset and liability method, which requires the recognition of deferred tax assets and liabilities for the expected future tax consequences of events that have been recognized in our financial statements or tax returns. In addition, deferred tax assets are recorded for the future benefit of utilizing net operating losses and research and development credit carryforwards. We record a valuation allowance when necessary to reduce our net deferred tax assets to the amount we expect to realize.

We evaluate our deferred tax assets regularly to determine whether adjustments to the valuation allowance are appropriate due to changes in facts or circumstances, such as changes in expected future pre-tax earnings, tax law, interactions with taxing authorities and developments in case law. In making this evaluation, we rely on our recent history of pre-tax earnings. Our material assumptions are our forecasts of future pre-tax earnings and the nature and timing of future deductions and income represented by the deferred tax assets and liabilities, all of which involve the exercise of significant judgment.

We assessed our valuation allowance requirements and recorded a valuation allowance against all of Ionis’ U.S. federal net deferred tax assets in the fourth quarter of 2020, due to uncertainties related to our ability to realize the tax benefits associated with these assets. We based our determination largely on Akcea rejoining the Ionis U.S. consolidated federal tax group in the fourth quarter of 2020. Due to Akcea’s historical and projected financial statement losses, and the negative impact we expect this to have on Ionis’ consolidated taxable income, there is uncertainty of generating sufficient consolidated pre-tax income in future periods to realize the Ionis deferred tax benefits. We also expect that Ionis’ pre-tax income in future periods may be realized.lower due to increased research and development expenses associated with our pipeline of wholly owned medicines. We continue to maintain a valuation allowance against all our consolidated U.S. federal and state net deferred tax assets.

We evaluate long-lived assets, which include property, plant and equipment and patent costs, for impairment on at least a quarterly basis and whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that we may not be able to recover the carrying amount of such assets.

The preparation ofWe prepare our condensed consolidated financial statements in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the U.S. requires managementthat require us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in theour condensed consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. Actual results could differ from thoseour estimates.

We computeIn the first quarter of 2021, we computed basic net income (loss)loss per share by dividing the totalour net income (loss) attributable to our common stockholdersloss by our weighted-average number of common shares outstanding during the period. For the first quarter of 2021, we did not have to consider Akcea results separately in our calculation because we owned 100 percent of Akcea for the entire period. Our basic net loss per share for the three months ended March 31, 2021 was $0.64.

The calculationIn the first quarter of total net income (loss) attributable2020, prior to our common stockholders for the three and six months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019 consideredAkcea Acquisition, we calculated our net income (loss)loss for Ionis on a stand-alone basis plus our share of Akcea’s net income (loss)loss for the period.period to determine our total net loss attributable to our common stockholders. To calculate the portion of Akcea’s net loss attributable to our ownership, we multiplied Akcea’s net income (loss)loss per share by the weighted average shares we owned in Akcea during the period. As a result of this calculation, our total net income (loss)loss available to Ionis common stockholders for the calculation of net income (loss)loss per share is different than our net income (loss)loss attributable to Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. common stockholders in the condensed consolidated statements of operations.

Our basic net loss per share for the three months ended June 30,March 31, 2020, was calculated as follows (in thousands, except per share amounts):

For the three and six months ended June 30,March 31, 2021 and 2020, and the three months ended June 30, 2019, we incurred a net loss; therefore, we did not include dilutive common equivalent shares in the computation of diluted net loss per share because the effect would have been anti-dilutive. Common stock from the following would have had an anti-dilutive effect on net loss per share: