Eli Lilly, Verge announce milestones in ALS collaboration

Verge Genomics announced that Eli Lilly (LLY) has opted to pursue the development of therapeutics against two validated drug targets for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, as part of the companies’ collaboration, which was initiated in July 2021. The targets were identified and validated by Verge’s AI-enabled Converge platform, with 83% of prioritized targets validated in disease-relevant models, a rate significantly higher than industry standards, demonstrating the robust predictive power of Converge. Target selection triggered near-term milestone payments from Lilly to Verge. Verge is eligible for additional downstream economics as the programs progress. In 2021, Verge and Lilly entered into a three-year collaboration to discover and validate novel therapeutic targets for ALS that would become the focus for subsequent drug discovery and development. Verge received up to $25M in upfront, equity investment and potential near-term milestones, with a total deal value of $694M plus potential downstream royalties.