Eli Lilly will acquire biotech company Kelonia Therapeutics in a deal worth up to $7 billion, the company said Monday.
Lilly will pay $3.25 billion up front and the remaining payments depend on clinical, regulatory and commercial milestones, it said. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026.
Kelonia is developing a technology to reprogram patients' T cells inside the body so they can attack cancer, called CAR-T in vivo. Current treatments require the work to be done outside the body, or ex vivo, a process that involves collecting cells, engineering them in a lab, and then reintroducing them. While logistically intensive, the procedure has been successful for blood cancers such as multiple myeloma.
“It's a one-time, intravenously administered therapy,” Jacob Van Naarden, Lilly's president of oncology and head of corporate business development, said in an interview. “It targets the body's T cells, transforms them to attack cancer in the body, and doesn't require any preconditioning.”
Johnson & Johnson's The CAR-T treatment for multiple myeloma, Carvykti, accounted for $1.89 billion in sales last year. Gilead It recently acquired its partner Arcellx and its rival to J&J's drug, called anito-cel, for $7.8 billion.
Ex vivo CAR-T involves waiting weeks for a patient's blood cells to be engineered. It requires patients to receive chemotherapy to eliminate old cells and make room for engineered ones, a process known as preconditioning. Until now, the procedure has been limited primarily to academic medical centers that have experience in the process.
Lilly's Van Naarden called Kelonia's data “nothing short of remarkable.” He said he recognizes the competition, but sees the convenience of a single brew as an attractive option. Aside from multiple myeloma, Lilly plans to use Kelonia's technology to treat other blood cancers and possibly solid tumors.
“We are going to be a player in hematology,” he said. “It's nice to have another drug to go to those doctors, a drug that can be used widely, that isn't relegated to academic medical centers that can do ex vivo personalized cell therapy.”
Lilly has been on a deal spree this year, announcing several acquisitions, such as sleep disorder drug developer Centessa Pharmaceuticals and cell therapy company Orna Therapeutics. Van Naarden said all the deals are part of Lilly's plan to grow beyond the GLP-1 obesity and diabetes drugs that Lilly is best known for.
“Right now, Lilly is seen as a weight loss company, and that's a very important part of our business,” Van Naarden said. “But over time, the goal, very intentionally, is to use the financial strength that the incretin and weight loss business provides us to help further diversify the business into other therapeutic areas.”
Some of Lilly's recent deals have come with higher prices and later-stage experimental drugs than Lilly typically purchases. The company has historically focused on small, early-stage deals for unproven science.
Van Naarden said the company has made a slight shift in strategy to continue doing high-volume deals in the early stages, as well as later-stage deals for experimental drugs with more clinical data.
“The challenge with the large volume of deals in the early stages is that most of it will turn into nothing. We know that, and that's okay. That's the nature of those bets,” Van Naarden said. “There's another side of the spectrum, where you can spend a little more money, you can still create value through long-term deals, but they come with some risk reduction. You've seen clinical data that shows these things work, and then you feel much better about having tangible medicine at the end of the journey. Those things, of course, cost more.”
Even taking into account the deals Lilly has already made, when asked if there could be more in the future, Van Naarden said: “We don't feel limited.”
