MeiraGTx Holdings is licensing a genetic eye disease medicine to Eli Lilly in a deal worth up to $475 million.
Eli Lilly’s business development team has been busy this weekend. The GLP-1 pharma has inked a $75 million upfront collaboration with genetic medicines biotech MeiraGTx Holdings to work on an eye disease therapy plus related technologies for ophthalmology.
In addition to the upfront sum, MeiraGTx is eligible for $400 million in milestone payments down the line, according to a Monday press release. In return, Lilly has gained rights to AAV-AIPL1, a genetic medicine in development for Leber congenital amaurosis 4 (LCA4). The genetic eye disease is caused by mutations in the aryl-hydrocarbon-interacting protein-like 1 (AIPL1) gene, leading to severe loss of vision from birth. AAV-AIPL1 is designed to deliver a copy of the AIPL1 gene to restore vision.
Lilly is also nabbing rights to use MeiraGTx’s gene therapy technologies for further ophthalmology targets. The pharma is specifically interested in novel intravitreal capsids and AI-generated promoters developed by the biotech. MeiraGTx is also granting access to its proprietary riboswitch technology for use in gene editing in the eye.
The MeiraGTx partnership is Lilly’s second in the past three days, after inking a $1.2 billion partnership with RNAi biotech SangeneBio on Saturday. The companies did not break down the total, only saying that the payments include an upfront fee and milestones. The focus will be on undisclosed metabolic disorders—a strategic fit for the pharma that has emerged as the leading GLP-1 pharma over Novo Nordisk.
Lilly has been busy with business development, buying gene therapy specialist Adverum Biotechnologies for up to $261.7 million last month. That deal was also in eye diseases, with Adverum’s lead asset covering wet age-related macular degeneration.
Earlier in the year, Lilly made another genetic medicine play, buying Verve Therapeutics for $1.3 billion to add a suite of investigational cardiovascular treatments to its pipeline. Other Lilly deals include the pharma’s $1 billion acquisition of non-opioid pain biotech SiteOne Therapeutics and its $2.5 billion deal with Scorpion Therapeutics for a PI3Kα blocker being developed for breast cancer and other solid tumors.
