Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly) has completed its previously announced deal worth up to $1.04 billion of US gene therapy company Prevail Therapeutics.

The US pharma giant said that the deal gives it a new modality for drug discovery and development. Furthermore, it will extend its research efforts via the creation of a gene therapy program that will be steered by the portfolio of clinical-stage and preclinical neuroscience assets of Prevail Therapeutics.

The lead gene therapies of the company in clinical development are PR001 for patients having Parkinson’s disease who have GBA1 mutations (PD-GBA) and neuronopathic Gaucher disease (nGD) and PR006, which is for patients suffering from frontotemporal dementia with GRN mutations (FTD-GRN).

Mark Mintun – Lilly vice president of pain and neurodegeneration research, commenting on Lilly acquisition of Prevail Therapeutics, said: “We are pleased to complete the acquisition of Prevail and establish a gene therapy program at Lilly that has the potential to deliver transformative treatments for patients with neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, Gaucher and dementia.”

As per the terms of the deal signed in December 2020, Prevail Therapeutics will get $22.5 per share in cash or nearly $880 million plus one non-tradable contingent value right (CVR).

The CVR enables stockholders of the gene therapy company to get an additional payment of up to $4 per share in cash or about $160 million upon securing the first regulatory approval for commercial sale of one of its gene therapy products in any one of the countries – the US, the UK, Japan, Germany, France, Spain, or Italy.

  Dementia, Eli Lilly and Company, gene therapy, Gene therapy company, Mark Mintun, Parkinson’s disease, PR001, PR006, Prevail Therapeutics, USA