Eli Lilly Strikes Up to $1.1B Gene Editing Deal with German Startup

Eli Lilly has entered a collaboration with Seamless Therapeutics worth up to $1.12 billion to co-develop gene editing therapies targeting genetic forms of hearing loss. The agreement grants Lilly exclusive rights to advance candidate therapies developed using Seamless’s recombinase-based platform, which is engineered to perform site-specific DNA edits by inserting or replacing gene fragments. Currently, there are currently no approved pharmacological treatments for reversing genetic hearing loss.

Seamless Therapeutics, a Dresden-based biotech founded in 2023, focuses on reprogramming recombinase enzymes for therapeutic genome modification. Its platform is positioned as a programmable alternative to nuclease-based gene editing tools, such as CRISPR, with potential applications across monogenic diseases. Under the terms of the deal, Seamless will lead enzyme design and optimization, while Lilly will oversee preclinical advancement and potential clinical development. No detailed breakdown of the upfront or milestone payments was disclosed.

The collaboration follows a series of recent moves by Lilly to expand its genetic medicines pipeline. These include the $1.3 billion acquisition of Verve Therapeutics and separate gene therapy deals with MeiraGTx and Sangamo Therapeutics. In the hearing loss space, Lilly is also backing AK-OTOF, a dual AAV gene therapy that previously showed restored auditory function in a congenitally deaf child.

January has been a busy month for Eli Lilly. In the first week of the month alone, Lilly struck an AI-guided multi-target oncology discovery deal with InduPro worth up to $950 million, opened access to its TuneLab AI drug discovery models to more than 1,300 biotech companies via a Benchling integration, agreed to embed the same TuneLab platform into Schrödinger’s LiveDesign environment for small-molecule and biologics design, and joined efforts with NVIDIA to invest up to $1 billion over five years in a joint AI co-innovation hub in South San Francisco.

To get regular updates on deals like these, as well as key breakthroughs, emerging startups, platform moves, and investment signals at the intersection of pharma, biotech, and healthcare, subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Where Tech Meets Bio.

Topic: Industry Movers