Eli Lilly The company announced Monday that it will acquire biotechnology company Chelonia Therapeutics in a deal worth up to $7 billion.
Lilly will pay $3.25 billion upfront, with the remaining payments contingent on clinical, regulatory and commercial milestones, the company said. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026.
Chelonia is developing a technology called in vivo CAR-T that reprograms a patient’s T cells in the body, allowing those cells to attack cancer. Current treatments require cells to be harvested, manipulated and reintroduced in the lab, a process that takes place outside the body, or ex vivo. Although the procedure is logistically intensive, it has been successful for blood cancers such as multiple myeloma.
“This is a one-time intravenous treatment,” Jacob Van Naarden, president and head of corporate business development for Lilly Oncology, said in an interview. “It targets T cells in the body and turns them into cancer-attacking cells in the body. No pre-conditioning is required.”
johnson & johnson Sales of Carvykti, a CAR-T treatment for multiple myeloma, were $1.89 billion last year. gilead It recently acquired partner Arcellx and J&J’s pharmaceutical rival anito-cel for $7.8 billion.
Ex vivo CAR-T involves waiting several weeks before the patient’s blood cells are manipulated. Patients will need to undergo chemotherapy to remove old cells and make room for the engineered cells. This is a process known as preconditioning. Until now, this procedure was limited to academic medical centers with expertise in the process.
Lilly’s Van Naarden called Chelonia’s data “nothing short of amazing.” He said he is aware of the competition but believes the convenience of a one-time injection makes it an attractive option. Beyond multiple myeloma, Lilly plans to use Chelonia’s technology to treat other blood cancers and possibly solid tumors.
“We’re going to be a player in hematology,” he said. “It’s great to have another drug that we can offer these physicians, a widely available drug that is not relegated to academic medical centers that can do in vitro personalized cell therapy.”
Lilly has been on an acquisition spree this year, announcing several acquisitions, including sleep disorder drug developer Centessa Pharmaceuticals and cell therapy company Orna Therapeutics. Van Naarden said these deals are all part of Lilly’s plan to grow beyond its GLP-1 drugs for obesity and diabetes, for which it is best known.
“Right now, Lilly is considered a weight loss company, and that’s a very big part of our business,” Van Naarden said. “However, over time, our very intentional goal is to leverage the financial strength provided by our incretin and weight loss business to further diversify our business into other therapeutic areas.”
Some of Lilly’s recent deals come with higher price tags or late-stage experimental drugs than Lilly typically purchases. The company has traditionally focused on small, early-stage deals in unproven science.
Van Naarden said the company has changed its strategy slightly to continue doing late-stage deals as well as a large number of early-stage deals for experimental drugs with more clinical data.
“The challenge with big trades in the early stages is that most of them end up being wasted. We know that, and that’s OK. That’s the nature of these bets,” Van Naarden said. “There’s the other side of the spectrum, where you can spend a little more money and create value through the trade in the long run, but the risk is mitigated to some extent. Once you’ve seen the clinical data that shows these things work, you feel much better about having a tangible drug at the end of the journey. Of course, these cost more.”
“I don’t feel constrained,” Van Naarden said when asked if anything more could happen in the future, given the deals Lilly has already struck.
