Pharma BD Deal Intelligence
Eli Lilly and Company and Dresden-based Seamless Therapeutics announced on 29 January 2026 a global research collaboration and licence agreement worth up to approximately US$1.12 billion in upfront payments, research funding and milestones, to develop and commercialise programmable recombinase-based therapies for genetic hearing loss. Seamless engineers site-specific recombinases that can be reprogrammed to perform precise, large-scale genomic rearrangements -- insertions, excisions and inversions -- without relying on nuclease-induced double-strand breaks, a profile suited to the structural mutations that underlie several inherited hearing-loss syndromes. The deal extends Lilly's push into genetic medicine for hearing loss and was announced the same day as its US$1.93 billion tolerising-therapy collaboration with Repertoire Immune Medicines.
| Deal | Year | Value | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eli Lilly and Company / Seamless Therapeutics GmbH (this deal) | 2026 | $1.1B | 55 |
| Eli Lilly and Company / Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH | 2011 | $444M | 89 |
| Eli Lilly and Company / Loxo Oncology, Inc. | 2019 | $8.0B | 88 |
| Eli Lilly and Company / Applied Molecular Evolution Inc. | 2003 | $400M | 88 |
| Eli Lilly and Company / ICOS Corporation | 2006 | $2.3B | 87 |
| Eli Lilly and Company / Novartis Animal Health | 2014 | $5.4B | 70 |
| Eli Lilly and Company / Incyte Corporation | 2009 | $755M | 69 |