Eli Lilly to acquire cancer drug maker Kelonia in deal worth up to $7B

Eli Lilly to acquire biotech company Kelonia Therapeutics in a deal worth up to $7 billion, The company said on Monday.

It said Lilly would make an upfront payment of $3.25 billion, and the remaining payment is dependent on clinical, regulatory and commercial milestones. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026.

Kelonia is developing a technology to reprogram patients’ T-cells inside the body so that those cells attack cancer, called in vivo CAR-T. Current treatments require that the work be done outside the body, or ex vivo, a process that involves harvesting cells, engineering them in a lab, and then reproducing them. While logistically intensive, this procedure has been successful for blood cancers such as multiple myeloma.

“It’s a one-time, intravenously administered therapy,” said Jacob Van Naarden, president and head of corporate business development for Lilly Oncology. “It targets your body’s T-cells, turning them into attacking cancer in the body, and it requires no prerequisites.”

Johnson & Johnson’s Carvykti, a CAR-T treatment for multiple myeloma, had sales of $1.89 billion last year. Gilead It recently acquired partner Arcelux and a rival to J&J’s drug, called Enito-Cell, for $7.8 billion.

Lilly’s Van Norden called Kelonia’s data “nothing short of remarkable.”

“We are going to be a player in hematology,” he said. “It’s nice to have another drug to go to those doctors with a drug that can be used widely, that isn’t sent to academic medical centers that can do ex-vivo personalized cell therapy.”