An Eli Lilly executive has said the company will “build a new way of doing science” as part of its £279m ($363m) pledge to boost the UK’s life science sector.
A memorandum of understanding was announced earlier this week at the International Investment Summit in London, with Lilly pledging to launch the first European Lilly Gateway Labs in the UK as part of the deal.
Lilly’s senior vice-president of information and R&D IT, Ramesh Durvasula, led a keynote discussion at the UK Bioindustry Association (BIA) TechBio 2024 conference in London on 16 October, following the pledge, highlighting how Lilly is using technology like AI to “transform itself to make the next generation of pharmaceutical products”.
“When we bring Lilly Gateway Labs to the UK, we are going to build a new way of doing science that is going to leverage the current technology stack, and we are going to constantly reinvent ourselves,” said Durvasula.
Lilly Gateway Labs is Lilly’s biotech incubator in the US, designed to support early-stage life science start-ups. It provides companies with access to lab space, equipment and opportunities to collaborate with Lilly scientists, offering expertise in drug development, regulatory strategies and commercialisation. Lilly’s Gateway Lab plans to build on the 300,000 jobs the life sciences sector already supports nationwide.
Lilly has cemented its use of tech and AI through several partnerships this year. Earlier this month, the company teamed up with insitro to develop treatments for metabolic diseases, combining insitro’s AI machine learning platform with Lilly’s drug delivery technology. The partnership is supported by Lilly’s external biotech collaboration unit, Catalyze360-ExploR&D.
Durvasula also touted the Catalyze360 programme, a venture-focused initiative designed to foster innovation in healthcare by supporting early-stage biopharmaceutical companies. “Catalyze360 is all about external innovation. Lilly Gateway Labs is one of the strategies that we have to enable this external innovation,” he said.
Lilly is a major player in the obesity and metabolic disorder space, highlighted by its blockbuster drug tirzepatide, marketed as Mounjaro for type 2 diabetes obesity in Europe. It is marketed as Zepbound for obesity in the US. Mounjaro pulled in $5.2bn in sales in 2023, as per Lilly’s financials, with its revenue forecasted to reach $32.4bn by 2030, according to analysis by GlobalData.
GlobalData is the parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology.
In addition to bringing Lilly Gateway Labs to the UK, the funding will also help to support a five-year clinical trial (SURMOUNT-REAL UK) to evaluate the real-world effectiveness of Mounjaro in weight loss, diabetes prevention and the prevention of obesity-related complications for adults with obesity.
Lilly’s CEO, David Ricks, called the trial and pledge "an important milestone”, adding the company is “committed to improving health for people living with obesity and its serious consequences”.
The study will also collect data on healthcare resource utilisation, health-related quality of life and changes in participants’ employment status and sick days from work, the company said.
Mounjaro was recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) to be prescribed directly by GPs, for patients with a BMI over 35kg/m² and one weight-related comorbidity in June 2024.
However, NHS England recently wrote to NICE setting out proposed plans for a phased approach to the rollout of the drug. The road map suggests those with the greatest clinical need will get priority access, according to the NHS national medical director.
