Nine months after Eli Lilly’s Prevail Therapeutics reduced the biobucks value of a gene editing deal with Precision Biosciences, the Big Pharma subsidiary has walked away from the partnership entirely.
The initial deal dates back to November 2020, when Lilly paid out $100 million cash to Precision to develop in vivo gene therapies for three gene targets, starting with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). At the time, the Big Pharma said if it chose another three targets beyond the initial three, the deal had the potential to surpass $2.6 billion in value.
Less than a month later, Lilly acquired Prevail for about $1 billion and assigned its new subsidiary to take over the work with Precision.
By July 2023, Lilly and Prevail were tinkering with the deal terms in order to better reflect Prevail’s increased involvement in pre-clinical activities. Prevail would still be able to nominate up to three additional gene targets for genetic disorders but the Lilly unit would also take over overseeing and funding preclinical research and activities designed to enable human clinical trials.
That meant the amount of biobucks on the table for Precision for each product that made it to market dropped from $420 million to $395 million.
Now, Precision has revealed that Prevail has lost interest. Precision put a brave face on the rejection, explaining in the April 16 release the decision to exercise "its option to regain rights for the programs” after Prevail had moved to “conclude the collaboration.”
“We enjoyed a productive gene editing collaboration with Prevail Therapeutics and appreciate their contributions to the success of these programs,” Precision’s CEO Michael Amoroso said in the release. “Together, we advanced three programs from concept toward clinical candidates, and Precision completed its workplan for these programs to the next stage gate, taking us to an important development decision point.”
The collaboration was centered on nucleases from Precision’s ARCUS editing platform, which is derived from a natural enzyme called a homing endonuclease that can target long sequences and is used to insert or delete DNA.
Precision’s co-founder and Chief Research Officer Jeff Smith, Ph.D., used the release to highlight “compelling in vivo proof-of-concept data generated for ARCUS gene excision of a ‘hot spot’ region of the dystrophin gene in the DMD program.”
The biotech said that as a result of the “strong proof of concept data generated to date,” it will “explore opportunities to develop the returned programs independently or in partnership with others.”
Precision’s shares were down around 8% at $11.81 in premarket trading Wednesday from a Tuesday closing price of $12.87.