Eli Lilly is heading back to its regular Chinese collaborator Innovent Biologics with $350 million in upfront cash to collaborate on new meds for patients with cancer or immune disorders.
The companies didn’t disclose the specific targets they have in mind nor how many drugs they expect to eventually be produced under their latest agreement, but, along with the upfront money, Suzhou, China-based Innovent is also in line for heavily backloaded development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments that could reach a combined total of $8.5 billion. Should these drugs make it to market, Innovent will be in line for royalties on sales outside of China.
The plan is for Innovent to use its antibody platform to bring oncology and immunology programs from the drawing board through to the completion of a phase 2 study. From there, Lilly will take the drugs forward and secure the license for the assets outside greater China.
Innovent said this “unique” deal structure “establishes a new model for Innovent to accelerate the global development of its innovative pipeline.”
“This alliance moves beyond traditional licensing to create a seamless, end-to-end innovation ecosystem that combines our agile discovery and early-stage development engine with Lilly’s extensive global scale and creates a highly efficient model for cross-border synergy,” Innovent CEO Michael Yu, Ph.D., said in a Feb. 8 release.
“This partnership validates Innovent’s R&D capabilities and allows us to accelerate the translation of scientific discoveries into impactful global medical solutions together with our partner, with the ultimate goal of bringing world-class medicines to patients across the globe,” Yu added.
Related
Lilly and Innovent are old friends, having penned six previous agreements together. Those collaborations have included Innovent bagging the rights to the U.S. pharma’s next-gen obesity drug mazdutide in China, where it scored regulatory approval last year.
Not all of the companies’ link-ups have been as successful. In 2022, Lilly dumped Innovent’s PD-1 inhibitor Tyvyt—once billed as a potential low-cost choice in a multibillion-dollar class—after the FDA turned down an approval for non-small cell lung cancer and castigated the partners for using China-only pivotal data that compared the experimental therapy to an outdated regimen.
For the final quarter of 2025, Lilly’s R&D spend rose 26% year over year to $3.8 billion, or 20% of revenue, according to the company’s earnings report last week.
