Eli Lilly

How many partners does Eli Lilly have?

Like many pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly does not provide the exact number of collaborations it has. Some idea of how strong alliances are within the company can be seen from its product pipeline listed in the company’s Annual Report for 2008, as shown below.

Percentage of products on market and in pipeline with alliance agreements

	Total products	Alliance	% alliance
Major marketed products	18	6	33%
New Drugs Application products submitted for FDA review	9	2	22%
Select drug candidates in late-Stage investigation	10	2	20%
Select drug candidates in mid-stage investigation	29	2	7%

How does Eli Lillty source partners?

Eli Lilly has a number of teams across the company focused on identifying, developing, and commercialising products and technologies from external sources. The key teams involved include:

• Global External Research and Development (GER&D) group, responsible for the identification, coordination, and scientific evaluation of new opportunities.
• Corporate Business Development (CBD) group, responsible for forming alliances.
• Corporate Finance—Investment Banking (CFIB), responsible for in-licensing and corporate projects through economic and financial-implication analytical work. CFIB has a strong emphasis on investment bank relationship management, valuation, financial analysis, merger and acquisition negotiation, acquisition-transaction due diligence, integration planning and execution, and other transaction-related disciplines.
• Office of Alliance Management (OAM), responsible for implementing and building relationships with each alliance partner after an agreement is signed.

In June 2009 the company set up a new web portal to facilitate more collaboration with academic laboratories and biotechnology companies. Called the Lilly Phenotypic Drug Discovery Initiative, or PD2, the portal allows external scientists to confidentially upload compounds of interest that Lilly can then apply its proprietary algorithms and assays to in order to review their therapeutic potential. This evaluation is free and at this stage, all intellectual property remains with the scientists submitting the compound. After the next tests are completed, Lilly provides the scientists with a biological profile across four assay modules: Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, diabetes, and osteoporosis. With the submission of this information to the researcher Lilly obtains the first right to exclusively negotiate a collaboration or licensing agreement, should it choose to further explore these compounds. If no agreement is reached within a pre-defined time period, the researcher is granted “no-strings-attached ownership” of the data report and can use the information freely.

Who are Eli Lilly’s partners?

Some of Eli Lilly’s partners are: 454 Life Sciences, Almac Diagnostics, Ambrx, Amylin Pharmaceuticals, BioMS Medical, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Centocor, China Meditech, Chugai Pharmaceutical, Corcept Therapeutics, Covance, Daiichi Sankyo, Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, GE Healthcare, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, ICOS Corporation, Isis Pharmaceuticals, Kyowa Hakko Kirin, MacroGenics, Medtronics, Nanosphere, NeuroSearch, OSI Pharmaceuticals, Piramal Life Sciences, Quintiles Transnational, Ranbaxy, Roche NimbleGen, Shionogi, Suven Life Sciences, TPG-Axon Capital, TransPharma Medical, United Therapeutics, University of Cincinnati

What collaborations has Eli Lilly entered into over the past few years?

• In September 2009 Almac Diagnostics and Lilly UK entered into a partnership to develop a companion diagnostic for ALIMTA, with cisplatin, as a combination therapy for non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer.
• In July 2009 454 Life Science and Roche NimbleGen, both units of Roche Applied Science, began a collaboration with Eli Lilly and SeqWright, a company specialising in custom genomic and molecular biology services. The goal of the collaboration is to identify genetic variants possibly associated with various psychiatric diseases. SeqWright is to utilize NimbleGen Sequence Capture technology to selectively enrich approximately 40 megabases of the human genome, which will then be comprehensively sequenced using 454 Life Sciences’ Genome Sequencer FLX System.
• In May 2009 Eli Lilly and Medtronic started a strategic marketing collaboration to improve the delivery of diabetes education for people and caregivers affected by type 1 diabetes.
• In Feburary 2009 Eli Lilly signed an agreement with NeuroSearch to form a three-year drug discovery and development alliance to investigate a defined number of undisclosed ion channel targets for their potential in treating various central nervous system (CNS) disorders. The aim of the collaboration is to discover and develop new medicines based on novel approaches to specific ion channel modulation. The collaboration comprises intellectual property and know-how from both NeuroSearch and Lilly. NeuroSearch received US$5 million upfront and is eligible to US$13 million in research funding over the next three years. Lilly also made a US$17 million equity investment in Neurosearch. Within the collaboration NeuroSearch is responsible for the drug discovery programmes any early development of novel drug candidates. Lilly has options to exercise license rights to individual compounds covered by the agreement and related intellectual property. Upon exercise of license rights, Lilly will be responsible for all subsequent development and commercialisation activities. NeuroSearch is entitled to milestone payments of up to US$ 320 million plus royalties on the product’s global sales.
• In October 2008 Eli Lilly and Deciphera Pharmaceuticals LLC entered into a collaboration and worldwide licensing agreement related to Deciphera’s preclinical B-Raf kinase inhibitor programme for the study of potential oncology therapeutics. Under the terms of the agreement, Lilly and Deciphera are collaborating in four different project areas involving selective or multi-kinase targeted B-Raf inhibitors. Lilly is to have exclusive worldwide rights to any products developed as part of this collaboration. Deciphera received an upfront payment and and is entitled to research funding over two years from Lilly. It may also receive up to US$130 million development, regulatory and sales milestones for each of the four project areas and royalties on sales from any products commercialised from the collaboration.
• In September 2008 Eli Lilly and Corcept Therapeutics entered a partnership whereby Lilly would fund studies to test the effectiveness of Corcept’s selective GRII receptor antagonis, CORT 108297, in rat models of olanzapine induced weight gain.
• In June 2008 Eli Lilly entered into a licensing and development agreement with TransPharma Medical Ltd to acquire rights to its product and related drug delivery system for the treatment of osteoporosis that was in Phase II testing.
• In February 2008 Nicholas Piramal India Ltd’s and Eli Lilly signed a second agreement to develop a new drug. The deal could bring Nicolas Priamal up to US$110 million, plus royalties on sales.
• In December 2007 Lilly and BioMS Medical entered a global licensing and development agreement whereby Lilly acquired exclusive worldwide rights to BioMS Medical’s lead multiple sclerosis (MS) compound, MBP8298 (dirucotide), a novel late-stage molecule currently being evaluated in two pivotal Phase III clinical trials in secondary progressive MS (SPMS) and one Phase II clinical trial in relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS). The two companies are co-developing the compound and sharing the costs with Lilly responsible for future research and development manufacturing, and marketing activities and BioMS Medical overseeing the clinical trials.
• In December 2007 Eli Lilly and Ambrx Inc entered into a collaboration to discover and develop novel treatments in several therapeutic areas, including metabolic diseases, central nervous system disorders and other diseases. The collaboration is applying Ambrx’s unique protein optimization technology, ReCODE^TM, with Lilly’s expertise in biologics discovery, development and commercialization to pursue first-in-class or best-in-class drug candidates, including therapeutic antibodies and improved variants of native proteins. Ambrx received an initial upfront payment and is eligible for ongoing research support payments and research and development milestones, and royalties.
• In October 2007 GE Healthcare and GE Global Research, two units of General Electric Co, into a three-year collaborative research agreement with Eli Lilly to develop in vitro diagnostic assays for cancer treatment. The assays would be used to predict the response of cancer treatment to targeted therapies.
• In October 2007 Eli Lilly entered into an agreement with Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Limited India to acquire the rights to a portfolio of transient receptor potential vanilloid sub-family 1 (TRPV1) antagonist molecules, including an early clinical-phase compound in development as a potential next-generation treatment for various pain conditions, including osteoarthritic pain. Since the agreement development of this compound has been suspended.
• In October 2007 Eli Lilly entered into a global strategic alliance with MacroGenics, Inc to develop and commercialize teplizumab, a humanized anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody, as well as other potential next-
  generation anti-CD3 molecules for use in the treatment of autoimmune diseases. Under the agreement Eli Lilly acquired the exclusive rights to the molecule, which was in the development stage (Phase II/III clinical trial for individuals with recent-onset type 1 diabetes).
• In January 2007, Eli Lilly entered into an agreement with OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc to acquire the rights to its compound for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, then in phase I clinical trials. .