Eli Lilly’s acquisition of Kelonia Therapeutics signals a potential shift in the cell therapy landscape, as in vivo approaches aim to overcome the cost, complexity, and access limitations of traditional CAR-T treatments.
Eli Lilly entered a definitive agreement to acquire Kelonia Therapeutics for upwards of $7 billion.
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The deal secures Lilly an in vivo gene therapy platform that could make CAR-T cell therapies accessible to a far broader population of cancer patients and also eliminate the complex and costly manufacturing process required by current approaches.
"Autologous CAR-T therapies have meaningfully improved outcomes for patients with various cancers, but significant manufacturing, safety, and access barriers mean that only a fraction of eligible patients actually receive them," said Jacob Van Naarden, executive vice president and president of Lilly Oncology.
Under the terms of the agreement, Kelonia shareholders are set to receive $3.25 billion upfront and upwards of $3.75 billion in additional clinical, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments, for total potential consideration of $7 billion.1
The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026 and is subject to customary regulatory approvals. The deal is Lilly's latest amongst a series of large oncology acquisitions, following its
Kelonia has developed a proprietary in vivo gene placement system, branded as iGPS, that uses engineered lentiviral-based particles to selectively enter T-cells inside a patient's body, directing those cells to produce chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies without ever leaving the patient.2
This stands in sharp contrast to existing approved CAR-T therapies, which require extracting a patient's T-cells, genetically engineering them in a specialized manufacturing facility over a period of weeks, and reinfusing them, a process that is expensive, time-consuming, and logistically inaccessible for many eligible patients.
Kelonia's lead program, KLN-1010, is an investigational one-time intravenous therapy that generates anti-BCMA CAR-T cells inside the body to target multiple myeloma.2 Early clinical results presented at the plenary session of the 2025 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting showed promising tolerability and provided initial proof of concept for the platform. The therapy is currently in a Phase I clinical trial.
"Kelonia's in vivo platform has the potential to change that by delivering rapid, durable responses in a far simpler, off-the-shelf format. The early clinical data for KLN-1010 are highly encouraging, both as a potential step forward for patients with multiple myeloma and as proof of concept for Kelonia's platform," said Van Naarden.
Kevin Friedman, PhD, CEO of Kelonia, said: "We have demonstrated the ability to achieve deep multiple myeloma remissions with significantly reduced complexity and cost relative to ex vivo CAR T-cell approaches. In combination with Lilly's strengths, our in vivo iGPS platform is positioned to broaden the reach of cell therapy beyond the current CAR-T landscape in hematologic malignancies and to transform treatment across a far wider range of cancers and other serious diseases."
The acquisition gives Lilly a foothold in cell therapy, a modality the company has not previously had a major presence in, while positioning it at the frontier of a potential platform shift in how CAR-T therapies are developed and delivered.
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