Eli Lilly is beefing up muscle health R&D, partnering with Juvena Therapeutics in a deal that includes an upfront fee and more than $650 million in milestones.
The partners will use Juvena’s artificial-intelligence-enabled screening platform to identify candidates that improve muscle health and body composition. Interest in drugs that drive muscle growth has picked up in parallel to the explosion in demand for GLP-1 medicines, which cause people to lose lean mass. Losing lean mass could theoretically affect physical function and raise the risk of falls and fractures, particularly in older people.
Juvena is applying a platform for mapping the therapeutic potential of stem-cell-secreted proteins to the problem. The platform combines a compounding database mapping secreted proteins to specific disease phenotypes, in silico and in vitro human cell screening and other capabilities.
The biotech used its platform to discover JUV-161, a first-in-class fusion protein that is designed to boost muscle regeneration. Juvena recently began a first-in-human trial of the endocrine therapy in myotonic dystrophy type 1, a disorder that affects skeletal and smooth muscle.
Lilly is betting the platform can discover molecules that benefit people with obesity. The Big Pharma has secured an exclusive license for lead candidates against multiple targets. Lilly will decide whether to take a program forward after Juvena achieves certain milestones. Once Lilly says yes, its teams will handle all further research, development and commercialization.
The arrangement could give Lilly a stream of early-stage muscle molecules to complement its existing pipeline. Lilly bought Versanis Bio for up to $1.92 billion in 2023 to gain ownership of bimagrumab. The antibody blocks a receptor to stimulate skeletal muscle growth. Lilly expects to report data this year from a phase 2 trial that is testing bimagrumab in combination with Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1 drug semaglutide.
Versanis started the semaglutide combination trial before being bought by Lilly. In recent months, Lilly has launched phase 2 trials to test bimagrumab with its GLP-1/GIP drug tirzepatide. Daniel Skovronsky, M.D., Ph.D., chief scientific officer at Lilly, discussed what Lilly wants to see from muscle-boosting drugs on an earnings call in February.
“We’re probably going to either need to see incremental weight loss or we're going to need to see some real functional benefits to lean mass preservation. I think just lean mass on its own, we don't really know how to understand that,” Skovronsky said. “We don't see any signs that lean mass changes on tirzepatide or, to my knowledge, on any incretin are actually adverse in any way.”
Other companies have identified muscle preservation as a potential way to carve out a niche in obesity. Facing entrenched market leaders in Lilly and Novo, Roche and Regeneron have acquired obesity assets to pair with their existing muscle drug candidates. Roche bought Carmot Therapeutics for $2.7 billion for obesity molecules. Regeneron paid Hansoh Pharma $80 million for a GLP-1/GIP receptor agonist.