Eli Lilly is pivoting its pain pipeline, punting a midstage program it licensed from Centrexion Therapeutics while adding a candidate from its recent SiteOne Therapeutics buyout to its early-phase portfolio.
Lilly paid $47.5 million upfront to license the non-opioid pain drug candidate CNTX-0290 from Centrexion in 2019. The SSTR4 agonist, which Lilly renamed mazisotine, recently came through a phase 2 study in patients with diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain. That trial marked the end of the line for mazisotine in pain at Lilly.
The Big Pharma removed mazisotine from its pipeline as part of a second-quarter update.
Meanwhile, the company has added STC-004 to its phase 1 portfolio, according to the update. Lilly recently acquired the NaV1.8 inhibitor as part of a deal to buy SiteOne for up to $1 billion. STC-004 hits the same target as Vertex’s pain treatment Journavx.
Lilly axed other partnered programs as part of the pipeline update. The other phase 2 asset included in the latest cull, a Kv1.3 antagonist that Lilly was developing in psoriasis, originated at D. E. Shaw Research. Lilly paid $60 million upfront for the candidate, which it named LY3972406, in 2022 and began a phase 2 trial the next year. The company recently completed the trial well short of its original enrollment target.
Lilly removed two programs from its phase 1 pipeline. The company picked up one of the candidates, the itaconate mimetic LY3839840, through a deal it signed with Sitryx in 2020. Lilly exercised its option on the autoimmune and inflammatory disease candidate last year but has now decided to call time on the program after completing a phase 1 trial in healthy volunteers.
The other culled phase 1 candidate is LY3885125, a small interfering RNA candidate that targets SCAP. Because SCAP is involved in the metabolism of liver fat, researchers have identified the protein as a potential target for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease drug development. Lilly terminated a study of LY3885125 in February but, at the time, said it planned to refine the patient population and start a new trial.