On a roll, Dicerna notches $100M upfront as Eli Lilly eyes RNAi applications in neurodegeneration, pain
Just days after selling co-development rights to two of its preclinical RNAi therapies to Alexion for a cool $22 million, Dicerna has scored another Big Pharma collaboration — this time moving further up the research stream but scoring a much bigger upfront.
Eli Lilly is paying $100 million for dibs on some new applications of Dicerna’s GalXC platform — neurodegeneration and pain — as well as the cardiometabolic work that’s become staple in the RNAi field. Add that to Lilly’s $100 million equity investment ($18.47 per share, a 42% premium from Dicerna’s $DRNA closing price on Friday) and the $350 million in milestones for each of the 10 targets that the partners expect to pursue, and Dicerna is looking at a pact potentially worth $3.7 billion.
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