Metis and Eli Lilly announce $1.1B strategic collaboration on generative AI-driven LNP delivery

On October 19, Metis Therapeutics (7666.HK) announced a strategic collaboration with Eli Lilly to advance tissue-specific lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery technology, with a total deal value of up to $1.1 billion. It is described as the first overseas licensing deal for a Chinese generative AI-LNP platform and the largest AI-driven extrahepatic LNP delivery platform collaboration globally.

LNP is a key delivery vehicle for nucleic acid drugs, gene editing, mRNA therapies and in vivo cell therapies. Traditional LNP formulations primarily accumulate in the liver, while achieving selective delivery to extrahepatic tissues such as the lung, spleen and tumors, as well as to specific cell types, remains a major industry challenge.

Metis said its NanoForge platform has accumulated more than 10 million lipid structures and 100,000 experimental data points. Its AiLNP platform includes AI-driven de novo lipid generation algorithms, a lipid language foundation model, the METiS agent, and a high-throughput dry-wet experimental loop. Eli Lilly has previously made AI-related moves across compute, small molecule generation, biologics design, gene editing enzymes and in vivo gene delivery; the collaboration is seen as adding the delivery layer to that chain.

Metis added that NanoForge also includes AiProtein for protein and antibody design, AiRNA for nucleic acid sequence design and AiTEM for small molecule formulation development. The companies said the collaboration aims to push delivery technology beyond organ-level targeting toward tissue- and cell-level selective delivery.