November 20, 2020

In an apparent R&D about-face, Eli Lilly partners with Precision BioSciences on genome editing in a deal worth up to nearly $2.7B

By Max Gelman on November 20, 2020

As a large multinational corporation, Eli Lilly has their hands in boundless projects, from cancer and immuno-oncology to diabetes, psoriasis and Crohn’s disease. But Friday they signaled a shift in their R&D focus toward genome editing, leaping into a cutting-edge field CEO Dave Ricks had shied away from as recently as January 2019.

The big pharma is ponying up $100 million upfront to partner with Precision BioSciences, focusing initially on Duchenne muscular dystrophy and two other undisclosed in vivo targets. Lilly is also acquiring $35 million worth of the biotech’s stock, and has the option to develop three additional in vivo therapies.

By offering up to $420 million in R&D and commercialization milestones per product, Lilly could end up paying Precision as much as $2.655 billion when all is said and done. On top of that, the biotech is eligible for single-digit to low-teen royalties on successful therapies.

Precision $DTIL investors greeted the news warmly, sending shares up more than 12% in early trading Friday.

“We feel like this is a strong statement from Lilly,” Precision CEO Matthew Kane told Endpoints News. “This is clearly a validating event for the company, but importantly it unlocks the potential for us to more aggressively go after some of these diseases.”