Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly) has partnered with Entos Pharmaceuticals to research, develop and market nucleic acid therapies that target central and peripheral nervous system.

Under the terms of the agreement, the two companies will jointly develop multiple proteo-lipid vehicles (PLV) to deliver Lilly’s therapeutic cargo to targets in the nervous system.

Entos will create, develop and optimise PLVs using its unique Fusogenix platform, while Lilly will select PLVs for clinical development and commercialization.

Lilly will make an initial payment of $50m, including an equity investment in Entos.

Entos is eligible to receive up to $400m in potential developmental and commercial milestone payments for each of the programmes, in addition to royalties on sales.

Entos founder and CEO John Lewis said: “For more than 145 years, Lilly has demonstrated its ability to incorporate cutting-edge scientific advances into drug development strategies.

“We are excited for the opportunity to play a part in Lilly’s ongoing quest to develop high-quality medicines and believe our collaboration with Lilly is an important validation of the potential value of our expertise and technology platform.”

Entos Pharmaceuticals is focused on developing new-generation genetic medicines using its unique Fusogenix proteolipid vehicle (PLV) drug delivery platform.

As part of the collaboration, the US drugmaker will obtain exclusive rights to Entos’ Fusogenix nucleic acid delivery technology.

With the Fusogenix technology, Lilly can access a novel delivery platform, which has the potential to address challenges in delivering various nucleic acid therapeutic modalities.

Lilly genetic medicine vice president Andrew Adams said: “Nucleic acid-based therapies hold great promise in addressing the biologic cause of many serious diseases that have significant unmet medical need.

“Overcoming barriers to the safe and effective delivery of such therapies to specific target cells is essential to realizing their potential.

“We look forward to working with Entos as part of our efforts to overcome this challenge and develop potential new therapies that may improve patient outcomes.”

Last month, the company, through its subsidiary Loxo Oncology at Lilly, has partnered with Foghorn Therapeutics, to jointly develop novel oncology medicines using the latter’s Gene Traffic Control platform.