Eli Lilly and Nimbus Therapeutics Announce $1.3 Billion AI-Driven Collaboration to Develop Novel Oral Therapy for Obesity

Recently, the world's most valuable pharmaceutical companyEli LillyCollaborative Computational Chemistry CompanyNimbus TherapeuticsCollaboration, focusing on the highly anticipated field of oral obesity therapy development.

The latest collaboration, Eli Lilly will pay NimbusUp to $55 millionThe upfront and near-term milestone payments will be used to leverage the biotech company’s computational chemistry and structure-based drug design approaches, in order to develop a novel oral treatment for obesity and other metabolic diseases.

In the future, if the oral drug is launched in China, Nimbus Therapeutics may obtainUp to $1.3 billionDevelopment, commercial, and sales milestone payments, as well as tiered royalties on global net sales.

It is worth mentioning that this agreement is an expansion of cooperation based on a certain foundation.

In October 2022, Eli Lilly andNimbus Therapeutics, Inc. announced, jointlyExploring Novel Targeted Therapies for Metabolic Diseases by Activating Specific Antimicrobial Peptide-Activated Protein Kinase (AMPK) Subtypes, CollaborationTotaling up to 496 million US dollars.

Peter Tummino, Ph.D., President of Research and Development at Nimbus Therapeutics, stated: "At Nimbus, computational scientists, medicinal chemists, pharmacologists, and translational biologists collaborate to integrate AI-driven predictive models with structural design, developing novel small molecules with top-tier potential. This integration enables us to consistently deliver optimized clinical candidates targeting challenging-to-drug targets."

Nimbus Therapeutics, originally founded by Bruce Booth and Ramy Farid in the United States in 2009. NimbusCombining leading computational technologies with a series of tailored machine learning-based predictive modeling methods, focusing on the discovery and development of novel small-molecule drugs for some challenging drug targets.

As of now, Nimbus has completed 9 rounds of financing, with a total amount reaching $637 million. The Gates Foundation has invested 6 times.List of InvestorsAmong them are well-known institutions such as Lilly Ventures, Pfizer Ventures, and Schrödinger, the first AI drug discovery company to go public, making the lineup of backers extremely impressive.

Recently，Takeda Pharmaceutical announced that its highly selectiveOral TYK2 Inhibitor Zasocitinib(TAK-279) in twoPositive Results Achieved in Pivotal Phase 3 Clinical Trial。

Based onEfficacy and Safety Profile of ZasocitinibTakeda plans to submit a new drug application for marketing approval in the fiscal year 2026.

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