OliX Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Eli Lilly and Camurus have entered into partnership worth up to $870m to develop long-acting therapies in cardiometabolic health. The collaboration and licence agreement gives Lilly exclusive global rights to research, develop, manufacture and commercialise incretin products based on Camurus’ technology. Camurus’ FluidCrystal is designed to deliver therapeutic levels of drug substances over extended periods of time with a single injection via a prefilled syringe or auto-injector pen. The deal covers up to four Lilly proprietary drug compounds. This could include dual GIP and GLP-1 receptor agonists, triple GIP, glucagon and GLP-1 receptor agonists, and an option for amylin receptor agonists. In exchange, Camurus will be eligible to receive up to $290m in upfront, development and regulatory milestone payments, as well as $580m in sales-based milestone payments and tiered mid-single digit royalties on global net product sales. Fredrik Tiberg, president, chief executive officer and chief scientific officer of Camurus, said: “We are pleased to enter into this collaboration with Lilly to bring innovative long-acting treatment options to people living with obesity, diabetes and other serious chronic diseases. “Through the collaboration with Lilly… we leverage our FluidCrystal technology in rapidly expanding indication areas impacting hundreds of millions of people, while maintaining our own commercial focus on central nervous system and rare diseases.” Cardiometabolic health is a key focus area for Lilly. In February, the company entered into a global licensing agreement with RNAi therapeutics specialist OliX Pharmaceuticals to advance a phase 1 candidate for metabolic-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) and additional cardiometabolic indications. The alliance focuses on the development and commercialisation OliX’s OLX75016, which has already demonstrated efficacy in preclinical studies in addressing MASH, liver fibrosis and other cardiometabolic diseases. Lilly also announced last month that its Zepbound (tirzepatide), a dual GIP and GLP-1 receptor agonist, was superior to Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1 receptor agonist Wegovy (semaglutide) across all weight reduction targets in a head-to-head study of the two approved drugs in adults who are obese or overweight with least one weight-related medical problem, but not diabetes.

GSK’s new asset efimosfermin has already performed well in a Phase II trial, with the drugmaker saying it is now ‘Phase III ready’. Image credit: Getty/JUSTIN TALLIS. Just a day after dropping a $625m cancer asset, GSK has inked a deal worth a potential $2bn to acquire Boston Pharmaceuticals’ efimosfermin, a drug ready to hit Phase III trials for the treatment of liver disease. The UK big pharma company will pay $1.2bn upfront for Boston’s subsidiary BP Asset IX, which will give the company access to efimosfermin. GSK has also agreed to pay additional milestone payments totalling $800m, along with tiered royalties to Novartis, which originally owned the therapy. Shares in London-listed GSK opened relatively unchanged following the news, though climbed into the mid-morning to a share price high of £1,382.00 (correct at 11am GMT+1). The company has a market cap of £56.98bn. Efimosfermin is being developed to treat and prevent the progression of steatotic liver disease (SLD), a build-up of fat in liver cells. SLD is a broad disease term used to encompass various causes of fat accumulation in the liver. If untreated, fat build-up in cells can progress to more severe stages that include fibrosis and cirrhosis. GSK’s new asset is taken once monthly via a subcutaneous injection. Efimosfermin is a long-acting variant of fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) that is designed to regulate key metabolic pathways to decrease both liver fat and inflammation, and reverse liver fibrosis. The therapy has already performed well in a Phase II trial (NCT06920043) in patients with moderate-to-advanced (F2 or F3) metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), a form of SLD. Data, posted by Boston in November 2024, demonstrated that efimosfermin has ‘significant therapeutic potential’ in liver disease. Of the 31 patients receiving the injection, 14 had a one-stage or greater improvement in fibrosis without MASH progression, compared to just seven out of 34 in the placebo group. GlobalData Strategic Intelligence US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate? Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis. By GlobalData Learn more about Strategic Intelligence Whilst there are other FGF21 drugs in development – such as Akero Therapeutics efruxifermin and 89bio’s pegozafermin – Boston designed efimosfermin with an extended half-life to allow monthly dosing while Akero and 89bio’s assets require weekly dosing, GSK’s drug could be set for an early market advantage. GSK has also earmarked efimosfermin’s potential to combine with its in-house siRNA therapeutic GSK’990 to address more advanced stages of SLD. According to GlobalData estimates, the MASH market is anticipated to reach sales of $25.7bn in 2032 across the seven major markets (7MM: US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, and Japan). The market was revived in March 2024 when Madrigal Pharmaceuticals’ Rezdiffra (resmetirom) won the first US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for a MASH treatment. GlobalData noted an increase in drug partnership deal values in the MASH arena in 2024. Eli Lilly continued this trend into this year when it agreed to pay $630m for a Phase I RNA-based candidate from South Korea-based biotech OliX Pharmaceuticals in February 2025. GSK said the purchase of Boston’s drug aligns with its R&D focus on “science related to the immune system”. The deal agreement comes just a day after the drugmaker dropped an anti-TIGIT antibody it previously attained the rights for in a $625m upfront deal. GSK’s chief scientific officer Tony Wood said: “Efimosfermin will significantly expand our hepatology pipeline and provide us the opportunity to develop a new potential best-in-class medicine with its first launch expected in 2029. It complements GSK‘990, also in development for alcohol-related liver disease and MASH, offering GSK options to develop both monotherapy and potential combinations to improve patient outcomes.”

iStock, ktsimage The Alchemab deal will further strengthen Lilly’s early-stage pipeline for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, coming less than a year after the pharma licensed QurAlis’ antisense oligonucleotide to correct a specific protein alteration in ALS. Eli Lilly inked a licensing agreement with Alchemab Therapeutics, gaining access to the U.K. biotech’s early-stage therapy for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Financial details of the arrangement were slim, with the companies revealing Tuesday only that the total deal could be worth up to $415 million, including an undisclosed upfront payment as well as discovery, development and commercialization milestones. On top of this sum, Alchemab will also be entitled to royalties if the collaboration asset makes it to market. It’s the second biotech that Lilly has teamed up with in the past year to develop novel therapies for ALS. Last June, the pharma company paid QurAlis $45 million upfront and pledged up to $577 million in milestones, plus tiered royalties, for the exclusive global license to QurAlis’ investigational therapy QRL-204, an antisense oligonucleotide that helps restore the function of a specific protein central to the pathology of ALS. The drug at the heart of Tuesday’s announcement is ATLX-1282, an investigational antibody that targets a protein called UNC5C , which is implicated in a variety of neurodegenerative diseases . According to Tuesday’s announcement, ATLX-1282 has first-in-class potential and is ready for an investigational new drug (IND) application. As with QRL-204, the partners will advance ATLX-1282 for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other neurodegenerative diseases. Alchemab will usher the molecule through early Phase I development, after which Lilly will take charge and assume responsibility over all further clinical studies, regulatory activities and commercialization. Lilly and Alchemab first linked up in January, also to address ALS. That agreement, which involved undisclosed payments, focused on the use of Alchemab’s technology platform to identify and advance up to five novel therapies for the disease. Tuesday’s announcement “builds” on this prior arrangement, but is “separate” from the January deal, according to the companies’ press announcement. Beyond ALS, Lilly has been on an aggressive dealmaking spree in recent months. In January, for instance, the pharma inked a pair of contracts: a $780 million licensing pact for Mediar Therapeutics’ idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis drug and a potential $2.5 billion agreement for Scorpion Therapeutics’ PI3Kα inhibitor, which the pharma will develop for breast cancer and other solid tumors. Lilly again signed back-to-back deals in February, teaming up with South Korea’s OliX Pharmaceuticals and Australia’s AdvanCell for cardiometabolic and cancer treatments, respectively. Last month, the pharma licensed a proprietary AAV vector capsid from Sangamo Therapeutics for $18 million upfront , plus the promise of up to $1.4 billion in certain milestones.