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Eli Lilly stock reached a new 52-week high on Nov. 10, up 4.7% and extending a month-long rally of 16%, after the pharmaceutical giant announced two strategic deals, following the highly anticipated deal with the White House. The move underlines Eli Lilly’s ambition to expand beyond its dominant obesity and diabetes franchises and enter cutting-edge modalities that could shape the next decade of growth. On Nov. 10, Insilico Medicine, an AI-driven drug discovery company, shared that it will merge its pharma.AI platform with Eli Lilly’s development and disease expertise to “jointly discover and advance innovative therapies.” As part of this research collaboration, Insilico will design and optimize compounds for targets defined by Lilly and is eligible to receive over $100 million upfront, as well as “milestone payments and tiered royalties” on commercialized products. “Lilly has been a valued user of our Pharma.AI software suite, and this expanded collaboration further recognizes Insilico’s AI-driven drug discovery capabilities,” said Insilico Medicine CEO Alex Zhavoronkov. Pharma R&D increasingly incorporates AI The Eli Lilly-Insilico Medicine partnership highlights a growing convergence of AI and pharmaceutical research and development, as major companies like Novartis and Pfizer seek to compress development timelines through the use of generative AI models. Gene therapy meets ophthalmology in Eli Lilly-MeiraGTx deal In a separate announcement, MeiraGTx, a clinical-stage genetic medicines company, entered into a broad ophthalmology collaboration with Eli Lilly, granting Lilly exclusive rights to its AAV-AIPL1 program. AAV-AIPL1 is a gene therapy targeting Leber congenital amaurosis 4, a rare inherited retinal disorder that causes blindness in children. Clinical data provided by the company show that all 11 children under the age of 4, when treated with AAV-AIPL1, gained functional vision, underscoring the potential impact of the therapy. Lilly will also gain certain rights to MeiraGTx’s proprietary riboswitch technology for use in gene editing in the eye. Under the agreement, MeiraGTx will receive $75 million upfront and could earn over $400 million in milestones plus royalties on future sales. Analyst upgrades Eli Lilly With the stock up 25% year to date, investors are bullish on the pharmaceutical company’s ability to advance with changing technology and solidify its status as a diversified global pharmaceutical company. Leerink upgraded Eli Lilly to outperform from market perform with a price target of $1,104, up from $886, citing a stronger multi-year earnings outlook driven by multiple waves of obesity treatment adoption. The firm noted that its projection factored in expanded Medicare and Medicaid coverage for GLP-1 medicines by January 2027, as part of the new deal with the White House to lower drug prices. Analysts note that this will considerably strengthen the company’s leadership position, as reported by TheFly.
