Eli Lilly to buy Point Biopharma in $1.4bn deal

Eli Lilly said on Tuesday that it has agreed to buy radiopharmaceutical company Point Biopharma in a $1.4bn cash deal.

Point Biopharma has a pipeline of clinical and preclinical-stage radioligand therapies in development for the treatment of cancer.

Radioligand therapy can enable the precise targeting of cancer by linking a radioisotope to a targeting molecule that delivers radiation directly to cancer cells. This enables significant anti-tumour efficacy while limiting the impact to healthy tissue.

Jacob Van Naarden, president of Loxo@Lilly, the oncology unit of Eli Lilly, said: "Over the past few years, we have seen how well-designed radiopharmaceuticals can demonstrate meaningful results for patients with cancer and rapidly integrate into standards of care, yet the field remains in the early days of the impact it may ultimately deliver.

"We are excited by the potential of this emerging modality and see the acquisition of Point as the beginning of our investment in developing multiple meaningful radioligand medicines for hard-to-treat cancers, as we have done in small molecule and biologic oncology drug discovery and development."