Lilly, Repertoire enter up to $1.93 billion deal to develop autoimmune therapies

By Christy Santhosh

Jan 29 (Reuters) – Drugmaker Eli Lilly is partnering with Repertoire Immune Medicines in a deal worth up to $1.93 billion to develop therapies for multiple autoimmune diseases, the Massachusetts-based biotech said on Thursday.

Repertoire will receive $85 million upfront and up to $1.84 billion more for certain development and commercial milestones, as well as tiered royalties on net sales.

The companies will aim to develop treatments that will restore the immune system and achieve durable remission of disease, without the generalized immune suppression common with current therapies.

Lilly will gain access to Repertoire’s Decode platform that looks at how a type of white blood cell called T cells recognize and bind to specific targets on diseased cells.

“Decode provides the information that we then convert into a protein therapeutic,” Repertoire CEO Torben Nissen told Reuters.

The company has partnered with several major drugmakers, including Bristol Myers Squibb and Roche’s Genentech, on autoimmune disease programs, and most recently teamed up with Pfizer to develop potential T-cell–based therapies for advanced prostate cancer.

Under the terms of the agreement with Lilly, Repertoire will lead the collaboration until early discovery, and Lilly will lead clinical development, manufacturing, regulatory affairs and commercialization.

Nissen said the company has programs to help discover and develop therapies against many solid tumors, such as lung, breast, head and neck cancer.

Lilly has been actively expanding its immunology footprint with deals and acquisitions, which include the $3.2 billion purchase of Morphic Holding in 2024 to beef up its inflammatory bowel disease portfolio.

Its current immunology portfolio includes drugs such as Olumiant, Taltz and Omvoh to treat conditions such as arthritis, hair loss caused by the immune system, inflammatory skin diseases like psoriasis and chronic bowel diseases including ulcerative colitis.

The drugmaker is looking beyond its blockbuster weight-loss and diabetes drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro for growth.

(Reporting by Christy Santhosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed and Shailesh Kuber)