Nxera Reaches Key Milestone In Eli Lilly Collaboration For Diabetes And Metabolic Disease Drug Discovery

Nxera Pharma Co., Ltd. announced it has achieved a key development milestone under its ongoing collaboration and license agreement with Eli Lilly and Company, focused on diabetes and metabolic diseases. While the milestone payment amount remains undisclosed, Nxera emphasized its significant progress in R&D and will receive the payment in the third quarter of fiscal year 2025.

Dr. Matt Barnes, CSO and President of Nxera Pharma UK, commented: “We’re excited to have achieved this important milestone in this collaboration with Lilly, which marks a significant step towards developing novel treatments in these important areas of unmet need across diabetes and metabolic diseases. Our proprietary NxWave™ platform has continuously produced novel molecules for previously intractable targets, and we look forward to seeing further developments from this productive collaboration with Lilly.”

The milestone stems from the successful use of Nxera’s proprietary NxWave™ platform, which enables structure-based drug design targeting GPCRs (G protein-coupled receptors). The platform was used to identify small-molecule binders and reveal receptor binding sites, a development that has advanced the program to a stage where Lilly will take over further development and commercialization responsibilities. 

Since starting in 2022, Nxera and Lilly have united their skills in GPCR drug development with Lilly’s strengths in developing and launching drugs into the market. Nxera is eligible to claim up to $694 million in milestone and royalty payments, plus a share in profits from licensed products globally.