Eli Lilly Expands Genetic Eye-Disease Focused Pipeline With MeiraGTx Gene Therapy Collaboration

MeiraGTx Holdings plc (NASDAQ:MGTX) stock is trading higher after the company inked a strategic collaboration in the area of ophthalmology with Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE:LLY).

MeiraGTx will grant Lilly worldwide exclusive rights to its AAV-AIPL1 program for Leber congenital amaurosis 4 (LCA4), an inherited eye disease that causes significant vision loss from birth.

Under the terms of the agreement, MeiraGTx will receive an upfront payment of $75 million and will be eligible to receive over $400 million in total milestone payments. The company is also eligible to receive tiered royalties on licensed products.

Clinical data from 11 children under 4 years old showed that all 11 blind children gained vision after treatment with AAV-AIPL1.

Beyond its effects on vision, treatment with AAV-AIPL1 resulted in life-changing benefits across vital areas of development, including communication, behavior, learning, mood, psychological well-being, and social integration.

Also Read: MeiraGTx Collaborates With Hologen AI To Expedite Development Of Parkinson’s Candidate, Stock Soars

Lilly will also receive worldwide, exclusive access to MeiraGTx’s ophthalmology gene therapy technologies, with specific targets identified by Lilly. It will also grant Lilly certain rights to its proprietary riboswitch technology for use in gene editing in the eye.

MeiraGTx’s riboswitch technology platform is broadly applicable to any therapeutic protein. It allows precise, titratable in vivo production of the therapeutic protein or a gene-editing nuclease from a gene template, controlled by oral dosing of a small-molecule inducer.

On Saturday, SanegeneBio announced a global research and licensing collaboration with Eli Lilly to advance RNAi candidates for metabolic diseases, based on SanegeneBio’s proprietary tissue-selective delivery technology, LEAD.

SanegeneBio will receive an upfront payment and equity investment and will be eligible to receive near-term milestone payments. The company will also be eligible to receive up to $1.2 billion milestone payments, as well as tiered royalties on future product sales.

SanegeneBio will be responsible for discovering and identifying the optimized LEAD-based RNAi molecule for each program. At the same time, Lilly will be responsible for the subsequent IND-enabling studies, clinical development, and commercialization.

SanegeneBio’s LEAD platform has the potential to generate therapies for metabolic diseases that could be administered subcutaneously as infrequently as twice per year.

Price Action: LLY stock is up 0.84% at $932.18 during the premarket session at the last check on Monday.

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