Eli Lilly has announced a definitive agreement to purchase Centessa Pharmaceutical, an acquisition that will expand the company’s portfolio of sleep medicine and neurological conditions in general.
Centessa is a clinical-stage company developing oral orexin receptor 2 (OX2R) agonists, which impact the sleep-wake cycle by targeting the critical neurobiological system. The new class of medicine has the potential to be best in class for treating sleep-wake disorders like excessive daytime sleepiness and disorders of impaired wakefulness. In phase 2a trials, the company’s lead investigation candidate, cleminorexton, demonstrated potential for narcolepsy types 1 and 2 and idiopathic hypersomnia.
Lilly is buying Centessa for $38.00 in cash per share upfront, which totals around $6.3 billion. This is just one of several acquisitions Lilly has made recently, including a $1.2 billion deal signed in January to buy Ventyx Biosciences, picking up oral therapies for inflammatory-mediated diseases and $2.4 billion deal inked in February to acquire Massachusetts-based Orna Therapeutics, picking up Orna’s in vivo CAR-T pipeline.