Lilly Deepens ALS Pipeline With $415M Alchemab Licensing Deal

The Alchemab deal will further strengthen Lilly’s early-stage pipeline for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, coming less than a year after the pharma licensed QurAlis’ antisense oligonucleotide to correct a specific protein alteration in ALS.
Eli Lilly inked a licensing agreement with Alchemab Therapeutics, gaining access to the U.K. biotech’s early-stage therapy for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Financial details of the arrangement were slim, with the companies revealing Tuesday only that the total deal could be worth up to $415 million, including an undisclosed upfront payment as well as discovery, development and commercialization milestones. On top of this sum, Alchemab will also be entitled to royalties if the collaboration asset makes it to market.

It’s the second biotech that Lilly has teamed up with in the past year to develop novel therapies for ALS. Last June, the pharma company paid QurAlis $45 million upfront and pledged up to $577 million in milestones, plus tiered royalties, for the exclusive global license to QurAlis’ investigational therapy QRL-204, an antisense oligonucleotide that helps restore the function of a specific protein central to the pathology of ALS.

The drug at the heart of Tuesday’s announcement is ATLX-1282, an investigational antibody that targets a protein called UNC5C, which is implicated in a variety of neurodegenerative diseases. According to Tuesday’s announcement, ATLX-1282 has first-in-class potential and is ready for an investigational new drug (IND) application.

As with QRL-204, the partners will advance ATLX-1282 for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other neurodegenerative diseases. Alchemab will usher the molecule through early Phase I development, after which Lilly will take charge and assume responsibility over all further clinical studies, regulatory activities and commercialization.

Lilly and Alchemab first linked up in January, also to address ALS. That agreement, which involved undisclosed payments, focused on the use of Alchemab’s technology platform to identify and advance up to five novel therapies for the disease. Tuesday’s announcement “builds” on this prior arrangement, but is “separate” from the January deal, according to the companies’ press announcement.

Beyond ALS, Lilly has been on an aggressive dealmaking spree in recent months. In January, for instance, the pharma inked a pair of contracts: a $780 million licensing pact for Mediar Therapeutics’ idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis drug and a potential $2.5 billion agreement for Scorpion Therapeutics’ PI3Kα inhibitor, which the pharma will develop for breast cancer and other solid tumors.

Lilly again signed back-to-back deals in February, teaming up with South Korea’s OliX Pharmaceuticals and Australia’s AdvanCell for cardiometabolic and cancer treatments, respectively. Last month, the pharma licensed a proprietary AAV vector capsid from Sangamo Therapeutics for $18 million upfront, plus the promise of up to $1.4 billion in certain milestones.

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