Having backed Superluminal Medicines’ series A last year, Eli Lilly has now signed a $1.3 billion pact with the G protein-coupled receptor biotech.
The deal will see Superluminal use its GPCR platform to discover and optimize small-molecule therapeutics for undisclosed targets related to cardiometabolic diseases and obesity. Lilly will get exclusive rights to develop and commercialize these compounds.
In return, Superluminal will be in line for up to $1.3 billion from a combination of upfront and near-term payments, an equity investment, and development and commercial milestones—although the companies didn’t offer a breakdown of the financials.
Superluminal, which is based at Lilly’s Gateway Labs site in Boston, will also have a chance to take home tiered royalties on net sales of any approved drugs.
“Our collaboration with Lilly is a defining moment for Superluminal, and a testament to the power of our platform to deliver high-quality development candidates against historically intractable GPCR targets,” Superluminal CEO Cony D'Cruz said in the release.
“We are very excited to be embarking on this collaboration just as we begin to advance our internal drug candidate targeting rare genetic forms of obesity and hypothalamic obesity, and we are committed to bringing safe, efficacious, novel treatments to patients affected by these challenging conditions,” D'Cruz added.
The deal holds potential to diversify the next-gen obesity pipeline of Lilly, which underwhelmed investors with a phase 3 readout for its oral GLP-1 option last week.
GPCRs are proteins embedded in the membranes of cells. Cells use membrane receptors to communicate with each other and detect changes to their environment. Thirty-five percent of all drugs target GPCRs, but 70% of the more than 800 GPCRs are currently undrugged, the biotech explained when announcing its $120 million series A back in September 2024.
Lilly joined in on that funding round, which Superluminal used to finance preparations for taking its lead asset, an MC4R agonist for the treatment of obesity, into the clinic next year.
Several other companies are also exploring the potential of GPCRs. Septerna went public last year and has a GPCR-focused collaboration with Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Meanwhile, Boehringer Ingelheim struck a deal for Nxera Pharma’s GPCR schizophrenia drug, while Tectonic Therapeutics merged with Avrobio to set GPCR drugs as the combined entity's primary target.