Lil­ly at­tempts to re­vive an old idea for tack­ling pain, li­cens­ing PhI pro­gram from Japan’s Asahi Ka­sei Phar­ma

Eli Lil­ly is fronting some new cash in a space they’re quite fa­mil­iar with.

The com­pa­ny is part­ner­ing with Japan’s Asahi Ka­sei Phar­ma on an ex­per­i­men­tal drug for chron­ic pain, ac­quir­ing the rights for the P2X7 re­cep­tor an­tag­o­nist pro­gram dubbed AK1780. Lil­ly will shell out a pret­ty pen­ny for the pro­gram, promis­ing up to $410 mil­lion to­tal should each mile­stone pay­ment come to pass.

Asahi Ka­sei will re­ceive an up­front sum of $20 mil­lion for the can­di­date. In ad­di­tion, Lil­ly is on the hook for up to $210 mil­lion in de­vel­op­ment and reg­u­la­to­ry mile­stones and an­oth­er po­ten­tial $180 mil­lion in sales mile­stones. Asahi Ka­sei can al­so ob­tain roy­al­ties rang­ing from the mid-sin­gle to low-dou­ble dig­its should an ap­proved prod­uct come out of the deal.

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