Lilly Acquires Pre-Clinical Program
Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE: LLY) has announced an agreement with Massachusetts-based Hydra Biosciences. The company says it has acquired all assets related to a pre-clinical program from Hydra, though financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed.
The program is related to TRPA1 antagonists, which Lilly says is currently being studied for the potential treatment of chronic pain syndromes. Mark Mintun, vice president of pain and neurodegeneration research at Lilly, calls the program promising and says the company will seek to initiate clinical studies in the near term.
"We are very excited to be transitioning this program into Lilly, given their depth of experience in drug development and commercialization," said Russell Herndon, chief executive officer of Hydra Biosciences. "Because of Lilly’s commitment to finding novel treatments for chronic pain, we can’t think of a better organization to advance these assets."
Hydra Biosciences focuses on the Transient Receptor Potential family of ion channels, which it says "offers numerous drug discovery opportunities in multiple areas of human disease."