Eli Lilly invests over 1.6 billion U.S. dollars in LYTAC protein degradation technology

A few days ago, Eli Lilly has signed a research cooperation and licensing agreement with Lycia Therapeutics to address key unmet medical needs in Eli Lilly's key therapeutic areas (including immunology and pain)
.

The focus of the two cooperation is to use Lycia's proprietary lysosomal targeting chimera or LYTAC protein degradation technology to discover, develop and commercialize new targeted therapies

In terms of cooperation details, Lycia will receive an advance payment of 35 million U.
S.
dollars and will be eligible for potential milestone payments of more than 1.
6 billion U.
S.
dollars
.

Eli Lilly and Lycia will collaborate on up to five difficult indications including immunology and pain

Lycia Biotechnology is headquartered in South San Francisco, USA.
The company mainly uses its Lysosome Targeted Chimera (LYTAC) platform to develop protein-degradable therapies
.

These abnormal proteins can cause a series of diseases in patients, including cancer and autoimmune diseases

In recent years, biotechnology companies that use protein degradation mechanisms to try to solve diseases that are difficult to treat with drugs have sprung up like bamboo shoots
.

Eli Lilly’s contract with a protein degradation partner once again shows that more and more pharmaceutical companies in this field are committed to the transition from undruggable to drug-free

In China, many companies are also actively developing protein degradation therapies
.

For example, Seed Therapeutics, a subsidiary of Wanchun Pharmaceuticals, and Eli Lilly have reached a licensing agreement with a potential of up to US$800 million to jointly develop new drugs for ubiquitination and targeted protein degradation; the TRK protein degradation agent CG001419 developed by Ruiyue Biotechnology is expected to be used in the treatment of cancer and others.

It is worth noting that the method used by Lycia is different from the PROTAC technology used by companies such as Arvinas
.

PROTAC molecule is short for proteolytic targeted chimera, which can use human cells to remove unwanted or damaged proteins

Eli Lilly said that the cooperative transaction with Lycia will not change Lilly’s previous 2021 non-GAAP earnings per share guidance

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Lilly doubles down on protein degradation, inking $35M deal with Lycia and promising $1.
6B more