[3] Santaris had gained intellectual property rights to the therapeutic applications of locked nucleic acid (LNA) technology.

With its LNA technology, Santaris developed drugs for the treatment of cancers and tumours using microRNA and mRNA.

LNA oligonucleotides were engineered by Santaris as antisense therapeutic agents, designed to complement specific mRNA and microRNA sequences.

It inhibits the protein that controls the number of receptors responsible for removing LDL cholesterol particles from the blood.

[13] Santaris developed a microRNA targeting drug for hepatitis C (HCV), miravirsen (SPC3649),[14] which entered Phase II clinical trials in 2010.

[16] [citation needed] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a multiple dosing study, by injection, to treatment-naive patients for phase II testing.

[15] Santaris had a collaboration with Shire to discover and develop new RNA-based medicines to treat rare genetic disorders.

[17] Santaris partnered with several pharmaceutical companies that wanted to develop LNA oligonucleotides for mRNA and microRNA targets.