Eli Lilly and Transition form gastrin partnership

Eli Lilly and Transition Therapeutics have entered into a licensing and collaboration agreement that sees Lilly granted exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commercialise Transition’s gastrin-based therapies.

In particular, Lilly will gain the rights for Transition’s lead compound TT-223 which is currently in phase II testing.

Gastrin-based therapies are an emerging class of disease-modifying therapies for patients with diabetes and have been shown to provide sustained improvement in glycemic control in early clinical studies.

David Moller, Eli Lilly vice-president of endocrine and cardiovascular research and clinical investigation, said that the agreement represented an “exciting new direction” for Lilly’s diabetes care research.

“We plan to leverage Transition’s experience in gastrin-based therapies with our own internal expertise, including Lilly’s strong biotechnology discovery platform, to continue our mission to develop innovative, beneficial and cost-effective treatments for patients with diabetes,” he added.

Under the agreement, Transition will receive a $7 million (3.47 million pounds) upfront payment and will also be eligible for payments of up to $130 million in potential development and sales milestones as well as any prospective royalties.

Earlier this month, Eli Lilly announced that it had ended the development of its AIR Insulin programme which the firm had been conducting together with Alkermes.