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St. Louis biotech startup acquired by international pharmaceutical company

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly has bought Disarm Therapeutics, a biotechnology firm founded by Washington University School of Medicine researchers in St. Louis, Mo. The acquisition was made with an upfront payment of $135 million, though investors may be eligible for up to $1.2 billion.

Pharmaceutical maker Eli Lilly and Company has purchased Disarm Therapeutics, a startup biotechnology firm founded by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Disarm Therapeutics was co-founded by Jeffrey Milbrandt, MD, PhD, and Aaron DiAntonio, MD, PhD, to speed the development of treatments for multiple neurodegenerative conditions.

Based on research from the Milbrandt and DiAntonio labs, the researchers’ startup company was developing drugs aimed at blocking or slowing axonal degeneration, a common problem across numerous neurological disorders. Such drugs potentially could help millions of patients with debilitating nerve damage due to a variety of ailments and injuries.

“Disarm Therapeutics had reached the point in the drug development process where we either needed to raise much more funding ourselves or work with a pharmaceutical company with the infrastructure already in place to take this technology to the next level,” said Milbrandt, the James S. McDonnell Professor, head of the Department of Genetics, and executive director of the McDonnell Genome Institute at the School of Medicine.

Lilly made the acquisition, announced Thursday, Oct. 15, with an upfront payment of $135 million. If future development, regulatory and commercial milestones are met, Disarm investors may be eligible for up to $1.2 billion in additional payments.