Eli Lilly has entered into a collaboration with Gate Bioscience, a biotechnology company based in California, through a deal valued at up to $856 million. The arrangement includes an undisclosed upfront payment and an equity investment by Lilly. Additional potential value is tied to development, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments, along with tiered royalties on global sales.
The focus of the collaboration is on the development of a new class of small-molecule therapeutics referred to by Gate as “molecular gates.” These compounds are designed to selectively eliminate extracellular proteins that are considered difficult to target with existing therapies. The approach aims to stop pathogenic proteins from exiting the cell by blocking their passage through the endoplasmic reticulum, the organelle responsible for protein synthesis and processing.
According to the companies, this therapeutic strategy may enable the treatment of diseases characterized by a high unmet medical need. However, no specific disease indications or molecular targets have been disclosed in the announcement.
As part of the partnership, Gate will receive some support for preclinical research and development from Lilly ExploR&D, which operates within Lilly’s early-stage biotech initiative, Lilly Catalyze360. This platform has previously entered into partnerships with Insitro, which focuses on siRNA, and Oblique Therapeutics, which works in antibody development.
The partnership marks the first publicly announced collaboration for Gate Bioscience. The company is currently in preclinical development and has not yet disclosed any pipeline programs.
Gate Bioscience was established in 2021 and formally emerged from stealth mode in 2023. In November 2023, it raised $60 million through a Series A financing round. Investors in the round included Versant Ventures, a16z Bio + Health, ARCH Venture Partners, and GV. At the time of the funding, Gate stated that the application of its molecular gate approach extended to areas such as inflammatory diseases, neurodegenerative conditions, and various cancers.
Gate describes its molecular gate drugs as potentially being administered orally and having the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier. The company’s goal is to address disease-causing proteins at their origin using this small-molecule technology.
“This collaboration fuels our vision to make molecular gates into medicines,” said Gate CEO and cofounder Jordi Mata-Fink, Ph.D. He also noted that the company aims to eliminate disease-related proteins with oral therapies and pointed to Lilly’s experience in developing treatments for unmet medical needs.
The deal follows a sequence of transactions by Eli Lilly to expand its development pipeline. In June, Lilly signed a deal worth up to $870 million with Camurus for long-acting obesity therapies, followed a week later by a partnership with Juvena valued at up to $650 million to identify muscle-preserving treatments. Subsequently, Lilly acquired Verve Therapeutics for $1.3 billion. That agreement involved VERVE-102, a therapy for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, with a provision for a contingent value right upon dosing of the first patient.
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