The pharma giant Eli Lilly and Company announced a new deal last week, taking full ownership of Protomer Technologies for $1 billion. Founded in 2015, Protomer engineers next-generation protein therapeutics that can sense molecular activators in the body. The company’s proprietary chemical biology-based platform enables the development of therapeutic peptides and proteins with a tunable activity that can be controlled using small molecules. Protomer has used this approach toward advancing a portfolio of therapeutic candidates, including glucose-responsive insulins that can sense sugar levels in the blood and automatically activate as needed throughout the day.
Lilly previously led an equity investment in Protomer alongside the JDRF T1D Fund, providing Lilly with 14 percent ownership of the company. Lilly is acquiring the remainder of the stock of Protomer beyond its initial investment.
Lilly sees a lot of potential in Protomer’s glucose-sensing insulating program and expects it to significantly bolster its diabetes pipeline, an already competitive medicine market. Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated purchased Semma Therapeutics, which is focused on therapeutic for type 1 diabetes, for $950 million back in 2019, and last year, Geneprex secured an exclusive license for a diabetes gene therapy from the University of Pittsburgh that may have the potential to cure Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.
