Emeryville, California-based OmniAb (Nasdaq: OABI) has signed a global collaboration and license agreement with Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) for a new ion channel program, with OmniAb eligible to receive up to USD 370 million in research, development, and commercial milestone payments plus tiered royalties on global net sales. An upfront payment is included but its amount was not disclosed. The therapeutic target and modality remain undisclosed.
The deal is structured as a technology licensing collaboration rather than an asset transfer. OmniAb will apply its platform's specialized ion channel discovery and screening capabilities to generate candidate biologics; Lilly will retain global rights to any resulting therapeutic and bear full development and commercialization responsibility. OmniAb's economic participation extends through commercialization via the milestone and royalty structure, despite its operational role being confined to the discovery phase.
Ion channels are historically resistant to biologic-based drug discovery because their therapeutic relevance depends on functional modulation of ion flux rather than simple binding, and their membrane-embedded architecture complicates antigen production and screening. OmniAb describes its ion channel capability as incorporating proprietary cell line generation, functional assays, and high-throughput single B-cell phenotypic screening — tools the company says are specifically designed for this target class.
The back-loaded structure limits the significance of the USD 370 million headline value: the upfront payment was not disclosed, while most potential economics depend on future development and commercialization milestones. The deal follows OmniAb's USD 30 million private placement in August 2025.