Dive Brief:
- Eli Lilly & Co. has rattled Adocia's share price by terminating a December 2014 agreement to develop the French biopharma's ultra-rapid acting insulin for type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
- The rights for BioChaperone Lispro, Adocia's lead development program, will revert to Adocia at no cost. But the announcement knocked off more than 30% of the smaller company's share value last Friday.
- Adocia has confirmed that it will continue plans for Phase 3 trials, and is seeking another partner.
Dive Insight:
The 2014 deal between Eli Lilly and Co. and Adocia, granting Lilly the development and commercialization rights to Adocia's ultra-rapid acting insulin, was worth up to $570 million, with Adocia receiving $60 million to date. However, Lilly has terminated the deal, seemingly with little warning or explanation, leaving Adocia floundering.
"We are extremely disappointed and surprised by Lilly’s decision to terminate the collaboration on our product which has demonstrated significant improvement in terms of performance vs Humalog across six clinical studies. Based upon this stage of development, we are convinced that BC Lispro can improve the lives of people with diabetes and Adocia will continue to prepare launch of phase 3 clinical trials while looking for a new partner," said Gérard Soula, Chairman and CEO.
Lilly is now under new direction with president and CEO David Ricks, who has reshuffled the leadership team and announced a new growth period for the company. While there has been no public statement from Lilly on the termination of the deal with Adocia, its likely a result of prioritization within the big pharma's R&D pipeline. Lilly has its own internal ultra-rapid insulin lispro candidate in Phase 2 trials in type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
Adocia's focus is on formulating already approved protein therapeutics using its BioChaperone delivery technology platform. Adocia has a rapid acting human insulin (HinsBet U100) and a combination of basal insulin glargine and rapid-acting insulin lispro (BioChaperone Combo) in clinical trials. Preclinical studies are ongoing with other protein formulations.