Eli Lilly has agreed to acquire chronic skin condition-focused biopharma, Dermira, for approximately $1.1 billion.
The all-cash acquisition will expand Lilly's immunology pipeline with the addition of lebrikizumab, a novel, investigational, monoclonal antibody designed to bind IL-13 with high affinity. The drug is being evaluated in a Phase 3 clinical development programme for the treatment of moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis in adolescent and adult patients, ages 12 years and older.
Tom Wiggans, Chairman and CEO at Dermira, said: "We share with Lilly a common interest in helping patients through the development of innovative treatments and believe that patients and physicians will benefit from the resources that Lilly can bring to maximise the potential of our programmes.”
The transaction is not subject to any financing condition and is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2020.
Lilly will provide an update to its 2020 financial guidance, including the expected impact from the acquisition of Dermira, as part of its fourth-quarter and full-year 2019 financial results announcement on 30 January 2020.
Lebrikizumab
Lebrikizumab was granted Fast Track designation from the US FDA in December 2019. The acquisition of Dermira will also expand Lilly's portfolio of marketed dermatology medicines with the addition of QBREXZA (glycopyrronium) cloth, a medicated cloth approved by the FDA for the topical treatment of primary axillary hyperhidrosis (uncontrolled excessive underarm sweating).
Patrik Jonsson, Eli Lilly Senior VP and president of Lilly Bio-Medicines, said: "The acquisition of Dermira is consistent with Lilly's strategy to augment our own internal research by acquiring clinical phase assets in our core therapeutic areas and leveraging our development expertise and commercial infrastructure to bring new medicines to patients.”