The BioWorld Biopharmaceutical Index finished 2025 up 24.07%, building slightly on its 23% gain recorded at the end of November. While the increase trailed the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index’s 32.4% rise for the year, it outperformed the broader Dow Jones Industrial Average, which advanced 12.97%.
Eli Lilly and Co. got a breather when the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the company doesn’t owe Research Corporation Technologies Inc. (RCT) royalties on its diabetes drugs under a licensing agreement Lilly had made with Phillips Petroleum Co. in 1990 and that Phillips later sold to RCT.
The BioWorld Biopharmaceutical Index finished 2025 up 24.07%, building slightly on its 23% gain recorded at the end of November. While the increase trailed the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index’s 32.4% rise for the year, it outperformed the broader Dow Jones Industrial Average, which advanced 12.97%.
CSL Ltd. is out-licensing its interleukin-6 (IL-6) monoclonal antibody, clazakizumab, to Eli Lilly and Co. in a deal that brings CSL $100 million in up-front fees. A CSL spokesperson told BioWorld the deal includes undisclosed milestone payments and sales-based royalties. CSL will retain rights to develop and commercialize clazakizumab for prevention of cardiovascular events in patients with end-stage kidney disease, while Lilly will explore the MAb in all other indications.
Shares in Novo Nordisk A/S took another battering after the company announced its next-generation obesity drug Cagrisema failed to show noninferiority to Eli Lilly and Co. Inc.’s Zepbound in an open-label comparator study.
CSL Ltd. is out-licensing its interleukin-6 (IL-6) monoclonal antibody, clazakizumab, to Eli Lilly and Co. in a deal that brings CSL $100 million in up-front fees. A CSL spokesperson told BioWorld the deal includes undisclosed milestone payments and sales-based royalties. CSL will retain rights to develop and commercialize clazakizumab for prevention of cardiovascular events in patients with end-stage kidney disease, while Lilly will explore the MAb in all other indications.
The scale of the $8.5 billion deal signed between Innovent Biologics Inc. and Eli Lilly and Co. is eye-catching, but the structure is the real signal. By shifting phase II oncology development to China while reserving global rights ex-greater China, the partners are testing a model that could reshape how multinational drugmakers source innovation as well as how Chinese biotechs create value.
As its GLP-1 rival goes after compounders, Eli Lilly and Co. started the week with news beyond its diabetes and obesity franchise. The company, which disclosed a new agreement with Innovent Biologics Ltd., followed up a short time later with plans to acquire Orna Therapeutics Inc., marking its latest foray in the in vivo therapy space.
The scale of the $8.5 billion deal signed between Innovent Biologics Inc. and Eli Lilly and Co. is eye-catching, but the structure is the real signal. By shifting phase II oncology development to China while reserving global rights ex-greater China, the partners are testing a model that could reshape how multinational drugmakers source innovation as well as how Chinese biotechs create value.
At a recent Cabinet meeting, U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert Kennedy reportedly said he expected Trumprx to probably go live within 10 days. That was Jan. 29, two days before HHS was once again forced to shut down many of its activities due to a congressional gridlock over a fiscal 2026 appropriations package to keep the department and several others open beyond Jan. 30.
