Eli Lilly is counting on Camurus and its long-acting delivery technology to help take its portfolio of obesity and diabetes drugs to the next level with a licensing deal worth up to $870 million.
With the partnership, Lilly can use Camurus’ FluidCrystal technology to develop and commercialize long-acting incretin products based on up to four of its own compounds. Those incretin compounds up for consideration in the collaboration include dual GIP and GLP-1 receptor agonists, triple GIP, glucagon and GLP-1 receptor agonists and an option to include amylin receptor agonists, according to a June 3 press release.
In return, Camurus is in line for up to $290 million in upfront, development and regulatory milestone payments. The Sweden-based company is also eligible for another $580 million in sales-based milestone payments plus tiered mid-single-digit royalties on global net product sales.
“Through the collaboration with Lilly, a global leader in the metabolic disease area, we leverage our FluidCrystal technology in rapidly expanding indication areas impacting hundreds of millions of people, while maintaining our own commercial focus on CNS and rare diseases,” Camurus’ CEO and CEO Fredrik Tiberg, Ph.D., said in the release.
Lilly’s cardiometabolic pipeline is rife with prospects in obesity and diabetes, including GIP/GLP-1/glucagon receptor agonist retatrutide, GLP-1 prospect orforglipron and amyloid receptor agonist eloralintide.
The company is also continuing to study its GIP/GLP-1 superstar tirzepatide, approved as Zepbound in obesity and Mounjaro in diabetes, in higher doses and for other indications such as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis.
Camurus’ FluidCrystal technology, meanwhile, is meant to deliver drug substances over expended periods of time via prefilled syringes or autoinjector pens.
As the lipid solution used in the FluidCrystal tech becomes a liquid crystalline gel upon contact with a patient's bodily fluids, the gel is intended to encapsulate the active ingredient in a paired drug. Then, the liquid matrix breaks down over time, slowly releasing the encapsulated active ingredient and allowing for sustained benefits “from days to months," according to the release.
Obesity market leaders Lilly and Novo Nordisk haven’t yet been able to corner the long-acting obesity drug market, but others such as Metsera are inching closer. Metsera plans to study its ultra-long-acting GLP-1 candidate as a once-monthly injection after reviewing encouraging weight loss results from a phase 2a trial.