Fueled by the success of the diabetes and obesity drugs Mounjaro and zepbound, which delivered the highest growth rate among global big pharma last year, Eli Lilly and Company has now acquired three vaccine corporations at once.
Following the 2024 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the Alzheimer's treatment Kisunla, the company has also secured shingles and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) vaccines, leading to analysis that it is zeroing in on the prevention market for neurological diseases such as dementia and stroke as a future growth driver.
Eli Lilly and Company said on the 26th (local time) it will acquire three corporations: Curevo, Inc., the U.S. affiliate of GC Biopharma; LimmaTech Biologics AG, a Swiss vaccine corporation; and Vaccine Company, Inc., a U.S. biotech corporation.
The deal size, including contingent milestones, is up to $3.83 billion (about 5.76 trillion won). The total value of each company's contract is up to $1.5 billion (about 2.2 trillion won) for Curevo, up to $780 million (about 1.1 trillion won) for LimmaTech, and up to $1.55 billion (about 2.3 trillion won) for Vaccine Company.
Lilly described the purpose of the transaction as "a strategy to prevent disease at its source rather than treating the consequences of disease."
In the announcement, Lilly cited links between infectious diseases and chronic neurological disorders. It is focusing on a growing body of research on the associations among stroke, dementia, and shingles, as well as between EBV (Epstein-Barr virus), a herpesvirus, and multiple sclerosis (MS), blood cancers, and stomach cancer.
Daniel M. Skovronsky, Lilly's chief scientific officer (CSO), said, "Decades of accumulated research show that common infectious diseases can lead years later to conditions such as neurological disease, cancer, and infertility," and noted, "As antibiotic resistance worsens, vaccines are increasingly becoming the only means of prevention."
◇ Dementia risk fell 20% after getting a shingles vaccine
Indeed, recent international studies have repeatedly found that the shingles vaccine may reduce the risk of dementia.
A Stanford University School of Medicine team reported this year in the international journal Lancet Neurology that, in a cohort study tracking 460,000 residents of Ontario, Canada, the risk of a dementia diagnosis was about 20% lower among shingles vaccine recipients than among the unvaccinated.
A prior seven-year study tracking 280,000 residents of Wales, United Kingdom, produced similar findings. That study was published in the international journal Cell. In addition, an Oxford University team reported in the international journal Nature Medicine that GSK plc's recombinant shingles vaccine Shingrix had superior dementia-preventive effects compared with a traditional live-attenuated vaccine.
Curevo is drawing the most market attention from Lilly's acquisitions. Curevo is a shingles vaccine development corporation that GC Biopharma established in Seattle in 2018. GC Biopharma decided to sell to Lilly all 21,075,336 shares of Curevo it holds for about 459.9 billion won ($303.92 million). The scheduled transfer date is Aug. 24.
Curevo's core pipeline is the shingles vaccine candidate amezosvatein. According to GC Biopharma and Lilly, in a phase 2 trial comparing the candidate with GSK's Shingrix, it met key immunogenicity endpoints while cutting adverse events such as fatigue, chills, and injection-site pain by more than half. Although Shingrix offers strong preventive efficacy, reports indicate that some recipients forgo the second dose due to post-vaccination pain, fever, and expense burdens.
Lilly expects to commercialize its vaccine candidates to raise vaccination rates and help reduce the risks of dementia and stroke. GC Biopharma, through this transaction, secured the potential for royalties and manufacturing contracts tied to future vaccine sales.
◇ GSK and Aribio also eye "vaccine-based dementia prevention"
Analysts say global big pharma corporations are targeting neuroscience and preventive medicine as the next growth pillars after obesity and diabetes.
Lilly has brought the Alzheimer's treatment Kisunla to market and is expanding investment in the central nervous system (CNS) space. GSK has also been expanding research on dementia prevention effects, led by its shingles vaccine Shingrix.
Related research and strategies are emerging in Korea as well.
Yeon Dong-geon, a professor in the Department of Digital Health at Kyunghee University School of Medicine, said an analysis of big data on about 2.2 million Korean adults aged 50 and older, held by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, the National Health Insurance Service, and the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service (HIRA), showed that recipients of live-attenuated shingles vaccines such as SK bioscience's SKY Zoster had about a 23% lower risk of myocardial infarction, stroke, and cardiovascular death.
Meeting with ChosunBiz, Professor Yeon said, "The shingles vaccine does not simply prevent shingles; it also shows it can help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by lowering the body's inflammatory burden." Yeon explained, "The shingles virus lies dormant in nerve ganglia and reactivates, triggering systemic inflammation," and added, "The vaccine may reduce this inflammatory burden and thereby lower the risk of various diseases, including dementia."
Aribio, which is developing AR1001, an oral Alzheimer's disease drug candidate now in a global phase 3 trial, recently acquired the CHA Vaccine Research Institute and is crafting a vaccine-based dementia prevention strategy. CHA Vaccine Research Institute is set to be renamed AriBio LAB.
Meeting with ChosunBiz, Jeong Jae-jun, CEO of AriBio LAB and co-CEO of Aribio, said, "Inflammation and immunity will be the central themes of future Alzheimer's treatments," and added, "An approach leveraging L-pampo, the proprietary immuno-enhancing platform owned by the CHA Vaccine Research Institute, could become one of our strategies for developing dementia treatments."
Meanwhile, Vaccine Company, which Lilly acquired alongside Curevo, is developing an EBV vaccine platform technology. EBV is known as the causative virus of infectious mononucleosis, but its links with multiple sclerosis (MS), blood cancers, and stomach cancer have recently drawn attention. Another acquisition target, LimmaTech, is developing vaccines for bacterial infections with rapidly rising antibiotic resistance, including Staphylococcus aureus, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and Chlamydia trachomatis.
References
Lancet Neurology (2026), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(25)00455-7
The Journals of Gerontology: Series A (2026), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glag008
Cell (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2025.11.007
European Heart Journal (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehaf230
Clinical Microbiology and Infection (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmi.2025.05.003
KJIM (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.3904/kjim.2025.171
Nature Medicine (2024), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-03201-5