Lilly enters AI deal with Fauna Bio to discover novel obesity targets

USA-based Fauna Bio today announced a multi-year agreement with US pharma major Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) to apply Fauna's Convergence artificial intelligence (AI) platform to support pre-clinical drug discovery efforts in obesity. The two teams will collaborate to identify multiple drug targets.

Under the terms of the collaboration, Fauna Bio will receive an upfront payment, including an equity investment, and is eligible to receive up to an aggregate $494 million in pre-clinical, clinical and commercial milestone payments, as well as royalties on product sales.

"We are very excited to enter into this collaboration with Lilly, which showcases the power of our Convergence AI platform to rapidly identify novel targets for complex disease areas of high unmet need," said Ashley Zehnder, chief executive and co-founder, Fauna Bio, noting that "Lilly is a leader in obesity treatment, and our approach enables and accelerates discovery across different disease areas and modalities for our partners, who bring deep expertise in drug development."