Antibody platform business OmniAb continues to rack up Big Pharma partnerships, with Eli Lilly signing off on up to $370 million biobucks tied to an ion channel program.
OmniAb spun out of Ligand Pharmaceuticals in 2022, having already partnered with Johnson & Johnson on a bispecific antibody that would get approved as Tecvayli. Since then, J&J has also worked with OmniAb on a phase 3-stage trispecific antibody for multiple myeloma called ramantamig.
Other high-profile, clinical-stage partnerships for the platform company include Boehringer Ingelheim’s liver disease drug BI 3802876, Germany-based Merck KGaA’s anti‑CEACAM5 antibody‑drug conjugate precemtabart tocentecan for colorectal cancer, and Teva Pharmaceuticals’ anti-interleukin-15 monoclonal antibody TEV-408 for vitiligo.
Now, Lilly wants in on the action. In return for an undisclosed upfront payment and up to $370 million in research, development and commercial milestone payments, the Indianapolis pharma will enter into a collaboration for “a new ion channel program.” The companies are keeping mum about the specific therapeutic target and modality involved.
“We are pleased to enter into this important new relationship with Lilly,” OmniAb CEO Matt Foehr said in an Aug. 17 release. “Lilly is focused on delivering medicines to address major unmet medical needs and our differentiated expertise and established technologies that relate to ion channels are well positioned to help drive this new discovery program.”
The OmniAb platform uses transgenic animals, including rats, chickens and mice, that are genetically modified to generate antibodies with human sequences for therapeutics.
Ion channels, which play a key role in a range of biological processes, form one strand of OmniAb’s research. The California-based company touts its ability to “provide novel reagent generation and proprietary assays that can … support antibody discovery programs and can be accessed by partners when pursuing ion channels and transporter targets, allowing the advancement of drug discovery against this challenging target class.”
OmnniAB attributed an uptick in service revenue in the second quarter of the year to the “commencement of new ion channel programs.”
Despite its perception as a tricky drug class, Vertex has had some recent success bringing ion channel therapies to market, including the NaV1.8 channel blocker Journavx to treat pain, as well as the CFTR modulator Alyftrek for cystic fibrosis.