Lilly quietly completes purchase of Padcev competitor, estimated at nearly half a billion dollars

Eli Lilly completed its acquisition of antibody-drug conjugate biotech Emergence Therapeutics, the Indianapolis pharma company confirmed to Endpoints News Wednesday.

The buyout closed on Aug. 24, a Lilly spokesperson told Endpoints in an email. Lilly paid an estimated $470 million, with $335 million in potential milestones, as calculated by Endpoints and multiple analysts.

Jack Elands

Eli Lilly and Emergence’s CEO Jack Elands declined to confirm the size of the deal.

In June, Lilly moved to acquire Emergence, which is based in Germany and France. The acquisition was disclosed by Heidelberg Pharma, a minor shareholder in Emergence, and was first reported by Biopharma Dive.

The biotech’s lead candidate is a preclinical antibody-drug conjugate that targets nectin-4, just like Seagen’s Padcev. Padcev is approved for certain urothelial cancers, and in the first half of 2023 made Seagen around $280 million. Seagen is currently working to expand the antibody-drug conjugate’s label in urothelial cancer and into bladder cancers. Pfizer is working to buy Seagen for $43 billion, and the two companies have said they expect the deal to close by the end of this year or early next year.

At the end of 2021, Emergence came out of stealth with €87 million (roughly $97.8 million at the time). Its investors included Pontifax Venture Capital, RA Capital Management, OrbiMed Advisors, Citadel and Hadean Ventures, among others.

therapeutics
biotech
pharma
venture capital
buy