Lilly Partners with Biopharma Firm on Diabetes Therapies

(photo courtesy: Eli Lilly & Co.)

Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE: LLY) has signed a research collaboration and license agreement with Biolojic Design, a biopharmaceutical company based in Israel, to discover and develop an antibody-based therapy for diabetes.

As part of the agreement, Lilly will use Biolojic’s AI-based platform to discover a multi-specific antibody to develop therapies.

“Lilly continues to seek out novel methods for developing new medicines, and Biolojic’s multi-specific antibody platform is a promising approach,” said Ruth Gimeno, vice president of diabetes and metabolic research at Lilly. “We look forward to working closely with the scientific team at Biolojic and leveraging their expertise to discover and develop a potential antibody-based therapy for people with diabetes.”

Lilly says Biolojic Design could receive up to $121 million in potential development and commercialization milestones.

Biolojic could also receive tiered royalties on product sales, depending on if Lilly places a therapy on the market resulting from the collaboration.

“Although our internal pipeline is focused on computationally designed antibodies for use in oncology and autoimmune disease, we are excited to partner with Lilly and apply our platform to design potential therapies for diabetes,” said Yanay Ofran, chief executive officer of Biolojic.