Eli Lilly and Company, the No. 1 drugmaker by market capitalization, has embarked on a "pipeline hunt," spending more than 50 trillion won since the start of the year on large-scale mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and licensing deals.
As data show it is trailing Denmark's Novo Nordisk in prescriptions for oral (pill) obesity drugs, attention is focusing on the backdrop to this expansion strategy.
In the industry, the moves are seen as strategic investments to shorten the time required for internal development, while there is keen interest in whether the large outlays will translate into tangible results.
On the 27th (local time), Lilly said it will acquire U.S. blood-cancer drug developer Ajax Therapeutics for $2.3 billion (3 trillion won).
Including this transaction, Lilly's global M&A this year totals $21 billion (about 31 trillion won). Counting technology deals, spending on M&A and licensing so far this year already exceeds 52 trillion won, based on what is publicly known. Targets span a wide range of areas—including oncology, cardiovascular disease, and sleep disorders—effectively broadening the portfolio across the board.
The investment ramp-up is seen as an effort to move beyond a growth structure centered on obesity treatments. Lilly boosted results with the glucagon-like peptide (GLP)-1 obesity drug "Mounjaro," but successor pipelines to drive growth afterward have yet to be sufficiently validated in the market. In particular, it appears to have suffered a heavy defeat in the early race with Novo Nordisk in the market for oral obesity drugs.
According to IQVIA, Lilly's oral obesity drug "Pfoundayo" recorded 3,707 prescriptions in the second week after its U.S. launch, while Novo's "oral Wegovy" logged 18,410, roughly five times as many. Immediately after the announcement, Novo's shares rose 6.8%, while Lilly's fell 3.7%.
Against this backdrop, Lilly is accelerating efforts to secure new growth drivers beyond obesity drugs. While expanding its pipeline through a mix of acquisitions and licensing across areas such as gene therapy, autoimmune diseases, and artificial intelligence (AI) drug discovery, investments in oncology stand out. It had been considered a relatively weak area, and $20.85 billion (about 30 trillion won) has been devoted this year to securing related pipelines alone.
In February, it acquired U.S. developer Orna Therapeutics, which is working on "in vivo CAR-T," a next-generation chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) technology that kills cancer cells directly in the body with a single injection, for $2.4 billion (about 3.5 trillion won). The same month, it signed an $8.85 billion (about 13 trillion won) oncology licensing deal with China's Innovent Biologics.
Then in March, it bought U.S. antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) developer CrossBridge Bio for $300 million (about 442.3 billion won), and in April, it acquired U.S. CAR-T developer Kelonia Therapeutics for about $7 billion (about 10 trillion won). Including the Ajax purchase, Lilly's known spending this year on M&A and licensing exceeds 52 trillion won.
Lilly's approach is seen as a strategy to make proactive investments in cutting-edge technologies on the back of ample capital, shortening research and development (R&D) timelines that typically take many years from the early stages and rapidly securing promising pipelines. Still, whether such investments can lead to actual clinical results and commercialization is viewed as the key test ahead.
In Korea as well, Lilly is continuing investments and partnerships. It is working on technology collaborations with OliX Pharmaceuticals (RNA), Rznomics (gene therapy), and ABL Bio (blood-brain barrier shuttle platform), and is conducting joint research with Peptron on the long-acting drug delivery platform "SmartDepot." As competition heats up to develop next-generation formulations such as once-monthly long-acting injectables, the possibility of signing a definitive agreement for the technology is also being discussed.
In addition, it is collaborating with SK on active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) production for research on long-acting obesity drugs.
Korea Lilly has also moved to strengthen domestic clinical capabilities, recently expanding hiring for clinical research roles. It has confirmed the establishment of a domestic base for the open innovation program "Lilly Gateway Labs (LGL)" with Samsung Biologics.