Eli Lilly expands Abbisko partnership in potential $1.9 billion deal

Eli Lilly has deepened its relationship with Abbisko Therapeutics in a new strategic research collaboration and license agreement that could be worth up to about $1.9 billion if development, regulatory and commercial milestones are met. Abbisko said the June 24 deal covers innovative medicines across multiple targets and includes an undisclosed upfront payment, milestone-based payments and tiered royalties on annual net sales from any products that emerge from the collaboration.

The agreement builds on a 2022 alliance between the companies, when Abbisko and Lilly entered a worldwide collaboration and exclusive licensing pact for novel molecules against an undisclosed target for cardiometabolic diseases. Abbisko later described that arrangement as a global collaboration and exclusive license agreement for a novel small-molecule therapeutic. The new deal extends that earlier relationship and gives Lilly another route into Abbisko’s discovery engine at a time when large drugmakers are increasingly leaning on outside science to widen their pipelines.

Abbisko has tried to position itself as more than a single-asset company. Founded in 2016, the Shanghai-based biotech says it has a robust in-house research and development engine and a pipeline of more than 10 small-molecule programs focused on oncology, with earlier company disclosures describing 14 or 15 innovative programs spanning clinical-stage and preclinical assets. Its lead candidate, pimicotinib, is a CSF-1R inhibitor being developed for tenosynovial giant cell tumor, and the program has already cleared important regulatory steps: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration accepted the new drug application on January 13, 2026, and the European Medicines Agency granted orphan drug designation in January 2024.

The market treated the Lilly deal as a vote of confidence. Abbisko shares rose about 4% after the announcement, while Abbisko Cayman Limited had a market capitalization of about HK$6.45 billion on June 4 and its Hong Kong-listed shares closed at HK$9.41 on June 24. For Lilly, the move adds another external science bet to a broader strategy of expanding therapeutic reach through partnerships rather than relying only on internal discovery.

The timing also underscores how much cross-border drug development now sits inside a more complicated political environment. Chinese biotech groups remain important sources of early-stage oncology science, but U.S.-China tensions have raised the stakes for where large pharmaceutical companies place capital, how they structure alliances and which programs they decide to move toward global commercialization.