Eli Lilly's stock on pace for record close as Crohn's disease trial hits the mark

By Eleanor Laise

Drugmaker also set to collaborate on new cancer treatments

Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) shares were on pace for a record closing high Tuesday after the drugmaker released data from a late-stage Crohn's disease trial and struck a deal to develop new cancer-targeting medicines.

The Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant's mirikizumab, which is already approved for ulcerative colitis, is also showing promise in a Phase 3 trial for Crohn's disease. In addition to achieving all of the trial's primary and secondary goals, as the company reported last fall, the drug appears to work for many patients who were not helped by previous biologic treatments, according to a Lilly release Tuesday. More than 43% of patients who previously failed on biologics achieved clinical remission after one year of mirikizumab treatment, Lilly said, compared with 12% of those patients on placebo.

The trial's results are "particularly impressive for patients with previous biologic failure who are generally considered hard to treat," Bruce Sands, a professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a paid consultant for Lilly, said in a statement.

After one year of treatment, patients taking mirikizumab also had "nominally statistically significant higher rates" of clinical remission and endoscopic response than those taking Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ) blockbuster immune drug Stelara, Lilly said in the release.

Lilly this year submitted applications for U.S. and European regulatory approval of mirikizumab for Crohn's disease.

Privately held biotech company Aktis Oncology also on Tuesday announced a collaboration with Lilly to discover and develop new tumor-targeting radiopharmaceuticals, which are drugs that contain radioactive agents. Under terms of the agreement, Aktis said it will receive a $60 million up-front payment, an equity investment by Lilly, and will be eligible for milestone payments of up to $1.1 billion. Lilly will get worldwide rights to develop the radiopharmaceutical products discovered by Aktis on a defined set of targets, Aktis said.

The agreement comes on top of Lilly's $1.4 billion acquisition last year of radiopharmaceutical company Point Biopharma Global Inc.

Lilly shares gained 2.6% Tuesday and are up 37.8% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 SPX has climbed 11.4%.

-Eleanor Laise

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05-21-24 1156ET

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