Eli Lilly and Co’s agreement on 20 April to acquire Kelonia Therapeutics Inc in a deal worth up to $7 billion puts the company in place to exploit the emerging field of in vivo CAR-T therapy which has been described by analysts as a way to achieve therapeutic value without a complex production step. This compares with the traditional ex vivo approach in which T cells are extracted from a patient, modified in a laboratory, and then reinfused into the patient.
The transaction includes an upfront cash payment of $3.25 billion, with additional milestone payments tied to clinical, regulatory and commercial achievements. The acquisition is expected to close in the second half of 2026, subject to customary regulatory approvals.
Kelonia has developed a proprietary in vivo gene placement system, known as iGPS, which uses engineered lentiviral particles to deliver genetic material directly into T cells inside the body. The approach is designed to enable patients to generate their own CAR-T therapies without the complex manufacturing processes associated with conventional ex vivo cell therapies.
The company’s lead programme, KLN-1010, is a one-time intravenous gene therapy intended to generate anti-BCMA CAR-T cells for the treatment of relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. Early clinical data from the Phase 1 study were presented during a plenary session at the 2025 American Society of Hematology annual meeting and suggested promising tolerability and encouraging anti-tumour activity.
Jacob Van Naarden, executive vice president and president of Lilly Oncology and head of corporate business development, said: “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. Kelonia's in vivo platform has the potential to change that by delivering rapid, durable responses in a far simpler, off-the-shelf format.”
He added: “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.”
Kevin Friedman, chief executive officer of Kelonia, said the company had shown “the ability to achieve deep multiple myeloma remissions with significantly reduced complexity and cost relative to ex vivo CAR T cell approaches.”
By Rosie Bannister
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