{"id":81146,"date":"2026-04-20T13:06:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T13:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/04\/20\/eli-lilly-to-acquire-cancer-drug-maker-kelonia-in-deal-worth-up-to-7b\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T13:07:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T13:07:44","slug":"eli-lilly-to-acquire-cancer-drug-maker-kelonia-in-deal-worth-up-to-7b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/04\/20\/eli-lilly-to-acquire-cancer-drug-maker-kelonia-in-deal-worth-up-to-7b\/","title":{"rendered":"Eli Lilly to acquire cancer drug maker Kelonia in deal worth up to $7B"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"RegularArticle-ArticleBody-5\" data-module=\"ArticleBody\" data-test=\"articleBody-2\" data-analytics=\"RegularArticle-articleBody-5-2\"><span class=\"HighlightShare-hidden\" style=\"top:0;left:0\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"InlineImage-imageEmbed\" id=\"ArticleBody-InlineImage-108230176\" data-test=\"InlineImage\">\n<div class=\"InlineImage-wrapper\">\n<div>\n<p>The Eli Lilly logo is seen on the company&#8217;s office in San Diego, California, US, on November 21, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Mike Blake | reuters<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p><span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-1\">Eli Lilly<span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\" aria-label=\"Add To Watchlist\" data-testid=\"dropdown-btn\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"\/><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span>    to acquire biotech company Kelonia Therapeutics in a deal worth up to $7 billion, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prnewswire.com\/news-releases\/lilly-to-acquire-kelonia-therapeutics-to-advance-in-vivo-car-t-cell-therapies-302747122.html\">The company said on Monday.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>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. <\/p>\n<p>Kelonia is developing a technology to reprogram patients&#8217; 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. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a one-time, intravenously administered therapy,&#8221; said Jacob Van Naarden, president and head of corporate business development for Lilly Oncology. &#8220;It targets your body&#8217;s T-cells, turning them into attacking cancer in the body, and it requires no prerequisites.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-3\">Johnson &#038; Johnson&#8217;s<span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\" aria-label=\"Add To Watchlist\" data-testid=\"dropdown-btn\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"\/><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span>    Carvykti, a CAR-T treatment for multiple myeloma, had sales of $1.89 billion last year. <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-4\">Gilead<span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\" aria-label=\"Add To Watchlist\" data-testid=\"dropdown-btn\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"\/><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span>    It recently acquired partner Arcelux and a rival to J&#038;J&#8217;s drug, called Enito-Cell, for $7.8 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Lilly&#8217;s Van Norden called Kelonia&#8217;s data &#8220;nothing short of remarkable.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are going to be a player in hematology,\u201d he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s nice to have another drug to go to those doctors with a drug that can be used widely, that isn&#8217;t sent to academic medical centers that can do ex-vivo personalized cell therapy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ArticleBody-googlePreferredSourceContainer\" data-module=\"GooglePreferredSource\" data-id=\"RegularArticle-GooglePreferredSource-5\">Choose CNBC as your favorite source on Google and never miss a moment of the most trusted name in business news.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Eli Lilly logo is seen on the company&#8217;s office in San Diego, California, US, on November 21, 2025. Mike Blake | reuters 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,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1959,1366,1570,2878,4629,23564,12163,7722,1640],"class_list":{"0":"post-81146","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-acquire","9":"tag-cancer","10":"tag-deal","11":"tag-drug","12":"tag-eli","13":"tag-kelonia","14":"tag-lilly","15":"tag-maker","16":"tag-worth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81147,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81146\/revisions\/81147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}