KBP-056

Eli Lilly is returning to KeyBioscience, a nimble Swiss biotech, seven years after originally linking arms with the startup to work on dual amylin calcitonin receptor agonists for obesity and other conditions. The world’s largest drugmaker by market capitalization will pay up to $1.4 billion to keep working with KeyBioscience on the potential new class of treatments also known as DACRAs. The companies didn’t say how much money was involved in the upfront payment. The tie-up includes an asset that is slated to enter Phase 2 testing by year’s end in people with obesity and osteoarthritis, the companies said Thursday morning. KeyBioscience said it will run the trial, which will include 600 people and look for both body weight reductions and changes in OA pain. Already one of the two GLP-1 leaders in the obesity drug landscape, Lilly continues to place further bets on other mechanisms of action and areas of research. It’s forged obesity pacts applying insights from the “ dark genome ,” the hibernation of the 13-lined squirrel and other areas. Beyond its hallmark tirzepatide franchise, the drugmaker has at least five other experimental medicines in late-stage or Phase 2 testing for obesity. If KeyBioscience follows through with its projected timeline, it could expand Lilly’s obesity pipeline to half a dozen drugs in mid- or late-stage trials by the end of 2024. KeyBioscience’s researchers think the dual agonists can help tamp down on body weight, control glucose levels and improve insulin action. Lilly already has an amylin receptor agonist known as eloralintide in Phase 2 for obesity. The Lugano, Switzerland-based biotech, which is a subsidiary of Danish drug developer Nordic Bioscience, had originally teamed with Lilly in 2017 for $55 million upfront. That pact included DACRAs known as KBP-042, KBP-089 and KBP-056. Lilly removed a Phase 2 of KBP-042/DACRA-042 for type 2 diabetes from its pipeline in the fourth quarter of 2018. Meanwhile, a study of KBP-089 for type 2 diabetes was terminated in 2020. On its website, KeyBioscience says in December 2019 it “reevaluated” its approach, which led to the “abandonment of once-daily injectable DACRAs” and switched to long-acting formulations that could be administered once a week. That pivot led to KBP-336, according to the biotech’s website. The drug entered human studies in the fall of 2021. A Phase 1b was completed in the spring of 2023. It wasn’t immediately clear if KBP-336 is the soon-to-be Phase 2 asset that KeyBioscience highlighted in Thursday’s press release. Editor’s note: This story was updated to include more details on the status of KBP-042 and KBP-089.