Lilly/Entos Deal Reinforces The Significance Of Delivery Mechanisms For Nucleic Acid-Based Therapies

As part of a research partnership aimed at improving the delivery of nucleic acid-based therapies targeting nervous system diseases, American pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly) has secured exclusive rights to Canada-based Entos Pharmaceuticals’ Fusogenix delivery technology.

This technology represents a novel delivery platform for deploying Lilly’s therapeutics. Nucleic acid-based therapies include those that use gene replacement, DNA editing, miRNA, RNAi and CRISPR to treat disease. They depend on successful delivery of the therapeutic payload: getting the right dose to the right location for the right amount of time — without significant toxicity. This has been a challenge for the industry, one that Lilly hopes to overcome with the Entos technology.

“Nucleic acid-based therapies hold great promise in addressing the biologic cause of many serious diseases that have significant unmet medical need,” explained Andrew Adams, vice president, Lilly Genetic Medicine, in a January press release.