On October 19, METIS TECHBIO-P (HKEX: 07666) entered into a global collaboration with multinational pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly for an AI-driven extrahepatic LNP delivery platform 鈥?the largest such deal worldwide and the first generative AI-LNP platform strategic partnership in China.
Under the landmark strategic collaboration, valued at up to US$1.1 billion, the two parties will focus on the research and discovery of novel LNP (lipid nanoparticle) delivery solutions to explore tissue-specific delivery approaches that support multiple therapeutic modalities. On October 20, METIS TECHBIO-P shares rose nearly 15% at their highest during the morning auction session, reflecting the market's positive response to the news.
Strong Alliance Deepens Global Biological AI Ecosystem Empowerment
LNP has become a critical technology for targeting specific tissues and cells to achieve therapeutic payload delivery, yet the discovery of traditional LNP lipid structures has long relied on researchers' empirical design and extensive experimental screening 鈥?a time-consuming process with limited explorable space. To address these pain points, the collaboration will combine METIS TECHBIO-P's capabilities in generative AI and predictive AI for rational LNP design and optimization with Lilly's expertise in scientific research and drug development, jointly focusing on discovering and optimizing novel LNP structures to enhance tissue specificity, improve therapeutic efficacy, and expand LNP technology applications across multiple disease areas.
According to the agreement, METIS TECHBIO-P will leverage its NanoForge-driven ionizable lipid discovery and optimization platform AiLNP (AI nanoparticle delivery system design platform) to develop next-generation delivery technologies that improve LNP targeting and optimize in vivo distribution. Lilly, in turn, will contribute its advantageous resources in drug discovery, development, and commercialization to accelerate the collaboration.
To maintain long-term competitiveness, Lilly has been proactively deploying AI technology to position itself for next-generation revolutionary therapeutic approaches, aiming to replicate the success of GLP-1 in emerging fields such as nucleic acid drugs, gene editing, mRNA therapies, and in vivo cell therapies. Its primary goal is to break through the bottleneck of insufficient delivery selectivity that limits these new therapies, expand the range of druggable targets, and drive progress from proof-of-concept to clinical translation.
However, compared with traditional organ-level delivery that only needs to solve enrichment challenges, tissue/cell-level selective delivery requires simultaneously overcoming multiple barriers including cell recognition, uptake, and intracellular functional release, imposing higher technical thresholds for lipid structure design and in vivo distribution prediction. For Lilly, METIS TECHBIO-P 鈥?with its technological advantages 鈥?is one of the few viable global collaboration partners.
As METIS TECHBIO-P's self-developed AI nanoparticle delivery platform, NanoForge employs a proprietary integrated innovation framework combining "dry lab + wet lab + intelligent agents," achieving a complete chain covering AI protein generation, in vivo delivery technology, and next-generation immunotherapy development. The platform has accumulated over 10 million lipid structures and 100,000 experimental data points, empowering more than 10 first-in-class or best-in-class pipelines and achieving breakthrough progress in targeted delivery across 8 major human organs and tissue/cell types.
The NanoForge-driven AiLNP platform features the world's first AI for Nano de novo lipid generation algorithm, lipid language foundation model, METiS intelligent agent ALAN, and a high-throughput dry-wet lab closed-loop iteration platform, and has become a key infrastructure in the Biological AI field.
For METIS TECHBIO-P, this collaboration marks a critical leap in using artificial intelligence to advance delivery technology from organ targeting to tissue and cell-level selective delivery 鈥?achieving substantive progress from "enabling drug enrichment in specific organs" to "delivering therapeutic payloads to specific cell types within tissues."
Commercialization Milestones Accelerate
Under the terms of the agreement, METIS TECHBIO-P will be eligible to receive an upfront payment exceeding tens of millions of dollars, as well as development, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments totaling up to US$1.1 billion. Additionally, METIS TECHBIO-P is eligible to receive tiered royalty payments in the single-digit percentage range based on annual net sales of collaboration products.
In fact, driven by extensive commercialization collaborations in recent years, METIS TECHBIO-P has been continuously validating its platform capabilities through rolling realization of orders, upfront payments, milestones, and revenue sharing. In June this year, METIS TECHBIO-P entered into a global exclusive licensing agreement worth up to US$1.6 billion with Boulevard Bio, backed by Deerfield 鈥?a top global health investment and innovation platform 鈥?setting a new record for a single preclinical TCE licensing deal in China. The company also achieved external industrial infrastructure-level application of NanoForge, facilitating a collaboration between its AiTEM AI formulation innovation platform and Hengrui Pharmaceuticals. In the CGT field, the company has established technical collaborations with multiple benchmark enterprises in segmented sectors, with total potential transaction value exceeding RMB 6 billion.
This landmark strategic collaboration with Lilly is undoubtedly another concrete manifestation of the accelerated value realization of METIS TECHBIO-P's NanoForge platform. In recent years, METIS TECHBIO-P's self-developed Biological AI key infrastructure NanoForge platform has gained broad recognition from international professional investment institutions and leading multinational pharmaceutical companies. This significant strategic collaboration with Lilly once again validates NanoForge's strong capability to continuously produce globally valuable innovative assets.
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