Lilly announced that it acquired Kelonia Therapeutics for an upfront price of $3.25 billion.
For Lilly, Kirkland & Ellis LLP is acting as legal counsel. For Kelonia, Jefferies LLC is acting as financial advisor, and Goodwin Procter LLP is acting as legal counsel.
Under the terms of the agreement, Kelonia shareholders will receive up to $7 billion in cash, inclusive of an upfront payment of $3.25 billion, and subsequent payments upon achievement of certain clinical, regulatory and commercial milestones.
Kelonia Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering a new wave of genetic medicines using its in vivo gene placement system. Kelonia’s in vivo gene delivery technology uses an advanced lentiviral vector particle harboring envelope modification to improve in vivo gene transfer efficiency and tropism molecules to facilitate tissue-specific delivery. Kelonia’s lead program, KLN-1010, is an investigational, one-time intravenous gene therapy that generates anti-B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) CAR-T cells, targeting the BCMA protein expressed on the surface of multiple myeloma cells.
Lilly (formerly known as Eli Lilly and Company) is an American pharmaceutical company headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, with offices in 18 countries. Eli Lilly discovers, develops, manufactures and sells pharmaceutical products worldwide. Its products are sold in 125 countries. According to its FY 2025 report, the company generated revenue of $65.2 billion and EBITDA of about $27.7 billion.
This marks Lilly’s fifth acquisition of the year, and its second largest in terms of price. It also purchased Ventyx Biosciences for $1.2 billion and Centessa Pharmaceuticals for $6.3 billion.
According to data captured in the LevinPro HC database, this transaction represents the 44th Biotechnology transaction of the year. There were 136 Biotechnology transactions announced in 2025, and 139 in 2024.
