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Writer's pictureMarcus Nikos

Eli Lilly strikes $2.5B Scorpion buyout in twist to breast cancer tale


Eli Lilly is reenergizing its attempt to challenge Novartis and Roche for a breast cancer market, kicking off the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference with a deal to buy Scorpion Therapeutics’ PI3Kα pipeline for up to $2.5 billion.

Novartis won FDA approval for its PI3Kα inhibitor Piqray in 2019. Roche’s Itovebi joined the party late last year. Lilly’s attempt to follow its peers took a hit last year when it axed LOXO-783 after comparing clinical data on the molecule to its next-generation candidates. At the time, Lilly’s chief scientific officer Daniel Skovronsky, M.D., Ph.D., said a next-generation prospect would enter the clinic in 2025.



The Scorpion deal secures Lilly a clinical-phase candidate ahead of schedule. Scorpion published phase 1 data on its candidate STX-478 last year, generating early evidence that the molecule may have an edge over Piqray and Itovebi and hold its own against Relay Therapeutics’ rival next-generation prospect.



Lilly has persuaded Scorpion to part with the candidate and the rest of its work on the PI3Kα pathway in return for up to $2.5 billion in upfront payments and milestones. The Big Pharma is buying Scorpion but will spin out its non-PI3Kα pipeline assets to create a new company. Scorpion’s staffers will join the new company, which will be owned by the biotech’s current shareholders and Lilly.

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STX-478 and Lilly’s internal PI3Kα candidates are designed to be more selective than Piqray and Itovebi, both of which hit both the wild-type and mutant forms of PI3Kα. Inhibition of the wild-type enzyme in healthy tissue can result in metabolic dysfunction and ultimately cause dose-limiting toxicities, leading Lilly, Scorpion and others to design molecules that selectively target the mutant PI3Kα enzyme.



Lilly said last year that LOXO-783 didn’t cause hyperglycemia—an adverse event associated with Piqray and Itovebi—in the clinic but questioned whether the efficacy was good enough in the months before dropping the candidate.

Scorpion reported (PDF) a 23% response rate in breast cancer patients when STX-478 was used as a single agent. All cases of hyperglycemia, diarrhea and rash—adverse events associated with inhibition of wild-type PI3Kα—were grade 1 or 2. 

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