Scoop: Eli Lil­ly and AC Im­mune qui­et­ly scrapped Alzheimer’s stud­ies for the cen­ter­piece of $2B deal months ago

In its quar­ter­ly earn­ings re­port Tues­day, Eli Lil­ly dis­closed it ceased de­vel­op­ment of an in-house, an­ti-tau Alzheimer’s pro­gram af­ter it missed the pri­ma­ry end­point in a Phase II study. But, at some point in late 2020 or ear­ly this year, Lil­ly and a biotech part­ner dis­creet­ly scut­tled plans for Alzheimer’s stud­ies for an­oth­er tau-tar­get­ing can­di­date at the cen­ter of a $2 bil­lion deal.

Lil­ly and AC Im­mune sus­pend­ed de­vel­op­ment of clin­i­cal Alzheimer’s tri­als for the deal’s lead com­pound some­time be­tween Nov. 13, 2020 and March 23, 2021, ac­cord­ing to AC Im­mune’s SEC fil­ings and pub­lic re­leas­es. The halt has not been pre­vi­ous­ly re­port­ed by news out­lets.

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