Nimbus Therapeutics has announced that it has entered into a multi-year research collaboration and exclusive, worldwide license agreement with Eli Lilly to develop a novel oral treatment for obesity and other metabolic diseases.
This new collaboration follows the previous collaboration between Nimbus and Lilly in 2022 that targeted AMPK in cardiometabolic diseases.
The companies will now apply Nimbus' computational chemistry and structure-based drug design approach to an early-stage, small molecule discovery programme addressing a significant unmet need in obesity.
"We are pleased to deepen our collaboration with Nimbus, a team that has demonstrated exceptional ability to tackle complex drug discovery challenges," said Ruth Gimeno, Group Vice President, Diabetes and Metabolic Research and Development at Lilly.
"Working together to develop this novel obesity therapy represents an important addition to Lilly's efforts to advance innovative treatment options for patients with metabolic disorders."
"At Nimbus, computational scientists, medicinal chemists, pharmacologists and translational biologists work together to integrate AI-driven predictive models with structure-based design to develop novel small molecules with best-in-class potential."
"This integration has enabled us to consistently deliver optimised clinical candidates for difficult-to-drug targets," said Dr Peter J. Tummino, President of Research and Development at Nimbus.
"We are excited to collaborate with Lilly on another programme, combining our discovery capabilities with their metabolic disease expertise to bring a much-needed new treatment to people with obesity."
Under the terms of the collaboration, Nimbus is eligible to receive upfront and near-term milestone payments totalling $55m, with eligibility to receive up to approximately $1.3bn in total, including development, commercial and sales milestone payments, as well as tiered royalties on global net sales.