Lilly, Biolojic to develop antibody therapies for diabetes treatment

Eli Lilly and Company has signed a research collaboration and license agreement with Biolojic Design to discover and develop therapies for diabetes treatment.

Under the deal, Biolojic’s artificial intelligence (AI)-based multibody platform will be leveraged for the development and discovery of novel antibody-based therapy to treat diabetes.

The companies have not disclosed the specific targets to be studied in the collaboration.

Biolojic CEO Yanay Ofran said: “Our AI-based platform designs single and multi-specific antibodies, or multibodies, that we believe can precisely target predefined epitopes to potentially execute novel biological programs not previously possible with conventional antibodies.

“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.

“Our research with Lilly is another example of how our platform could allow reimagining of therapeutic approaches that have not been possible before.”

As per the terms of the agreement, Lilly will be responsible for paying the research fees which is associated with the collaboration.

Furthermore, Biolojic will be eligible for approximately $121m in potential development and commercialisation milestones along with tiered royalties in the low- to mid-single digits on the sales if the product is successfully commercialised by Lilly.

Eli Lilly and Company diabetes and metabolic research vice-president Ruth Gimeno said: “Lilly continues to seek out novel methods for developing new medicines, and Biolojic’s multi-specific antibody platform is a promising approach.”