Eli Lilly, Nimbus Tie Up in USD 1.35 Billion AI-Driven Pact to Develop Oral Obesity Drugs

Nimbus will ⁠use its ⁠AI to help identify drug candidates, while Lilly will contribute its metabolic-disease expertise to develop an easy-to-take oral medicine for obesity.

Written By :  sheeba farhat
Published On 2026-01-07 10:41 GMT   |   Update On 2026-01-07 10:41 GMT
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Bengaluru: Nimbus Therapeutics said on Tuesday it has entered ‍into a multi-year research and licensing agreement with Eli Lilly to ⁠develop artificial intelligence-driven new oral treatments for obesity and other metabolic diseases.

The U.S. drugmaker will make upfront and near-term milestone payments ‌of $55 million, ‌with an additional $1.3 billion in development and commercial milestones to Nimbus, as ‌well as royalties on global sales if the drug is approved.

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Drug developers are increasingly adopting AI for discovery and safety testing to get faster and cheaper results, in ​line with a push by the U.S. ​Food and Drug Administration to reduce animal testing ‌in the ‍near future.

In 2022, Nimbus sold an ‍AI-designed compound to Takeda in a deal worth up ‌to $6 billion. The psoriasis treatment recently cleared two late-stage trials, and the Japanese drugmaker plans to seek regulatory approvals this year.

Drugmakers are racing to develop weight-loss pills that could offer an alternative to Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Lilly's Zepbound - both weekly ‍injections - in a market expected to generate more than $150 billion in annual revenue by the ‍early 2030s.

Nimbus will ⁠use its ⁠AI to help identify drug candidates, while Lilly will contribute its metabolic-disease expertise to develop an easy-to-take oral medicine for obesity.

The new collaboration follows the company's 2022 research and licensing agreement with Lilly to develop oral drugs for cardiometabolic diseases.

Boston-based Nimbus develops pill-form drugs and has programs in cancer, inflammatory diseases and metabolic disorders.

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Article Source : Reuters

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