Lilly Agrees To Acquire Kelonia Therapeutics For Up To $7 Bln
(RTTNews) - Eli Lilly and Company (LLY), a biotech company, Monday announced that it has agreed to acquire Kelonia Therapeutics, Inc. a clinical biotechnology company pioneering in vivo gene delivery.
Kelonia has developed a proprietary in vivo gene placement system that uses specially engineered lentiviral-based particles designed to selectively enter T-cells inside the body, allowing the patient's own body to generate chimeric antigen receptor T-cell that can treat underlying disease.
Further, Kelonia's lead program, KLN-1010, is an investigational, one-time intravenous gene therapy on which encouraging early results were presented in the plenary session of the 2025 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting, providing initial clinical validation and demonstrated promising tolerability.
Under the agreement terms, Lilly will acquire Kelonia and Kelonia shareholders will receive up to $7 billion in cash including an upfront payment of $3.25 billion. Lilly will also make subsequent payments upon achievement of certain clinical, regulatory and commercial milestones.
The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026.
Currently, LLY shares are trading at $925.34, down 0.19% on the New York Stock Exchange.
