Emeryville, Calif. — OmniAb Inc. entered into a global collaboration and license agreement with Eli Lilly and Company for a new ion channel discovery program using OmniAb’s technology platform and screening expertise.
Under the agreement, OmniAb will receive an upfront payment and is eligible for up to $370 million in research, development and commercial milestone payments, along with tiered royalties on global net sales.
The companies did not disclose the therapeutic target or modality involved in the program.
“We are pleased to enter into this important new relationship with Lilly,” said Matt Foehr, Chief Executive Officer of OmniAb. “Lilly is focused on delivering medicines to address major unmet medical needs and our differentiated expertise and established technologies that relate to ion channels are well positioned to help drive this new discovery program.”
OmniAb provides drug discovery technologies to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and academic institutions. Its platform is designed to generate and screen diverse antibody repertoires and identify antibodies and other target-binding proteins for therapeutic development.
The company’s technologies include engineered transgenic animals, computational antigen design, high-throughput single B-cell screening and analysis of next-generation sequencing datasets. OmniAb generally structures its partnerships around upfront or access fees, service revenue, development and commercial milestones, and royalties on product sales.
