BRIEF—Lilly and NextCure seek out new I-O therapies

Eli Lilly and NextCure have entered into a collaboration to discover new immuno-oncology therapies, utilizing NextCure's proprietary FIND-IO platform.

Both firms will receive options to exclusively license antibodies resulting from the collaboration.

NextCure will receive $25 million, and will be eligible for R&D milestone payments plus royalties on sales. Lilly has also made a $15 million equity investment in the firm.

Lilly oncology VP Greg Plowman said: "Through this collaboration, we hope to leverage NextCure's discovery platform to expand the reach of this class of groundbreaking treatments by identifying novel cancer targets that could enable the development of a new generation of immuno-oncology therapies."