Lilly Commits $100M Upfront in Five-Target Discovery Pact With InnoCare, With Up to $3.25B in Milestones
核心洞察
Eli Lilly will pay InnoCare Pharma up to $100 million in upfront and near-term payments under a strategic research collaboration and license agreement.
InnoCare is eligible for up to approximately $3.25 billion in development and commercial milestone payments plus single-digit tiered royalties on annual net product sales.
InnoCare will use its proprietary drug discovery platform to discover and advance compounds against up to five undisclosed targets addressing unmet medical needs.
Eli Lilly and Company has entered a strategic research collaboration and license agreement with Beijing-based InnoCare Pharma Limited covering up to five drug discovery targets, with InnoCare eligible for up to $100 million in upfront and near-term payments and up to approximately $3.25 billion in development and commercial milestone payments.
Under the terms, InnoCare will apply its proprietary drug discovery platform and research capabilities to discover and advance compounds against the targets, which the companies say address unmet medical needs. InnoCare will also receive single-digit tiered royalties based on annual net product sales. Neither party disclosed the specific targets or compounds covered by the agreement, nor the therapeutic areas involved.
InnoCare co-founder, chairwoman and CEO Jasmine Cui said the collaboration will leverage the company's R&D platform and research experience alongside Lilly's global pharmaceutical capabilities.
InnoCare's Pipeline and Partnering Strategy
InnoCare is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing medicines for cancer (搜索) and autoimmune diseases (搜索). Its pipeline includes three approved drugs, orelabrutinib, tafasitamab and zurletrectinib, along with more than ten innovative drug candidates in clinical development and multiple preclinical programs.
The company's internal pipeline spans hemato-oncology, autoimmune diseases (搜索) and solid tumors, and includes a VAV1 (搜索) degrader and a TYK2 (搜索) inhibitor. InnoCare's work on the autoimmune target TYK2 has drawn attention as the biopharma has emerged as a rival to Bristol Myers Squibb (搜索) and Takeda.
On an August earnings call, Cui outlined business development activities InnoCare had undertaken in the U.S. for early- and late-stage programs, including the VAV1 (搜索) degrader and TYK2 (搜索) inhibitor respectively, but said the company was in no rush to partner those programs. "We have a lot of cash, and we have our strategy for globalization, and we choose our partners very carefully," Cui said. "We are not urgent to get the cash."
InnoCare's autoimmune pipeline also includes orelabrutinib, a BTK (搜索) inhibitor already approved in China in certain blood cancers. Biogen paid $125 million for the asset in 2021 and walked away from the deal 19 months later amid intensifying concerns about the safety of BTK inhibitors in indications such as multiple sclerosis (搜索). InnoCare continued to study the asset and later landed a deal with Zenas BioPharma.
Lilly's Licensing Activity
The InnoCare agreement extends a run of dealmaking by Lilly, which has struck a series of takeovers worth upward of $1 billion each this year while securing other R&D programs and technologies through licensing deals.