Adocia Drags Eli Lilly to Court Over the Latter Abandoning Ship
Adocia, Eli Lilly in a whopping €464M, 2014 diabetes collaboration had even had a successful Phase Ib clinical trial evaluating BioChaperone Lispro, a treatment designed to accelerate insulin absorption. But with the deal going sour when Eli Lilly deciding to walk out, Adocia has now taken the former to court.
BioChaperone Lispro was developed by Adocia, but was acquired by the American company through the deal at the end of 2014. Adocia had received a total initial payment of $ 50 million and potential milestone payments mounted up to $ 280 million. Additionally, Adocia was supposedly to receive royalties at progressive rates on sales with Lilly reimbursing certain expenses for research and development during the contract period.
The partners had completed phase Ib clinical trials and were planning to progress to phase III before Lilly ended the partnership in January 2017. The Ib trials showed promising results, with BioChaperone Lispro shown to be significantly better at reducing glucose excursion than Lilly’s existing diabetes drug Humalog.
With Lilly no longer on board, Adocia was left without a partner to develop the drug further. Adocia’s share value dropped by 30% following Lilly’s exit
.Therefore, the French biotech is now seeking $200m in damages from Eli Lilly. Adocia is filing arbitration claims against Lilly for the ‘improper use of confidential information and discoveries’ and ‘the breaching of collaboration and confidentiality agreement’.
In early 2017, Eli Lilly decided to walk away from the agreement – possibly due to the Phase III failure of its Alzheimer’s drug. This has left Adocia without a partner to help it see its candidate through Phase III, prompting a backlash. Considering the huge potential that Adocia’s technology was showing in the clinic, it’s hard to believe that Eli Lilly wanted to cut ties with the biotech.
The failure of its Alzheimer’s drug forced the company to cut 485 jobs across the US so being forced to pay up to $200M will be another unwelcome surprise for the company.
