Eli Lilly & Co. is looking to pad out its diabetes portfolio by licensing an oral, non-peptidic GLP-1 receptor agonist from Chugai Pharmaceutical that the company describes as a “phase 1 ready” asset for the treatment of Type 2 disease.
In return for $50 million upfront, Lilly will receive worldwide development and commercialization rights to OWL833, with Chugai, a Tokyo-based member of the Roche Group, eligible for future milestone payments and royalties.
“We believe OWL833 can be a best-in-class oral non-peptide GLP-1 receptor agonist and that its value will be further enhanced through Lilly’s clinical development to contribute to people around the world who live with diabetes,” Yasushi Ito, M.D., Ph.D., Chugai’s executive VP and co-head of its Project & Lifecycle Management Unit, said in a statement.
Both companies said there would be no changes to their financial forecasts or guidances for 2018 as a result of the deal, and that OWL833 will “soon” enter phase 1 clinical development.
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Lilly has been working to grow and broaden the technologies in its diabetes pipeline, as well as extend its returns with stronger forays into devices and real-world evidence generation.
In April, the company paid $63 million for Type 1 diabetes cell therapies from Sigilon Therapeutics, and signed on for an additional $410 million in possible milestone payments.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Sigilon aims to induce pluripotent stem cells become insulin-producing beta cells, encapsulated using its Afibromer islet cell technology to protect the implanted cells from the immune system.
A few months prior, Lilly unveiled a device-driven strategy to weather pricing pressures, following its partnership with Dexcom to develop continuous glucose monitoring systems. Lilly has also been working on an automated, wearable insulin delivery device and smart pen injector at a small lab it launched in 2015.