Eli Lilly has entered into a partnership with Seamless Therapeutics aimed at expanding its portfolio of treatments for hearing loss. The agreement, announced Wednesday, is valued at over $1.12 billion and includes an upfront payment along with development and commercial milestone payments. Seamless Therapeutics will also be eligible to receive tiered royalties on any products that make it to market.
The focus of the collaboration is Seamless’ drug design engine, which produces site-specific recombinases—enzymes capable of manipulating DNA sequences to correct gene mutations. According to information from the company, these recombinases can precisely insert or delete large segments of DNA without causing additional mutations.
Under the terms of the deal, Lilly will use Seamless’ technology to address mutations associated with hearing loss. The pharmaceutical company will obtain exclusive licenses for a number of programmed recombinases, although specific details were not disclosed.
This partnership adds to Lilly’s growing efforts in hearing loss therapies. Its current portfolio includes AK-OTOF, a gene therapy acquired through the $487 million purchase of Akouos in October 2022. AK-OTOF delivers a functional copy of the otoferlin gene directly to hair cells in the cochlea and targets approximately 200,000 people worldwide who have hearing loss due to otoferlin mutations.
In January 2024, Lilly reported that AK-OTOF restored hearing in an 11-year-old boy within 30 days after treatment. At the time of dosing, the patient had experienced profound hearing loss since birth. Thirty days after receiving AK-OTOF, he reached normal hearing levels for some sound frequencies.
Lilly has made other investments in this area as well. In May last year, it signed an agreement worth up to $1.3 billion with Rznomics involving RNA editing technologies designed to target heritable forms of deafness.
Other companies are also active in this space; Regeneron is preparing to submit its own gene therapy candidate DB-OTO for FDA review following positive results in early clinical trials targeting otoferlin mutations.
