Eli Lilly paid up to $2.3 billion for Ajax Therapeutics on April 27, adding a Phase 1 myelofibrosis asset to a deal streak that’s included Verve ($1B upfront), Ventyx ($1.2B upfront), and Kelonia ($3.2B upfront) in recent months alone.
What Lilly gets: AJ1-11095, a Type II JAK2 inhibitor currently in Phase 1 for myelofibrosis patients who’ve exhausted approved Type I options like Novartis and Incyte’s Jakavi or Bristol Myers Squibb’s Inrebic. The mechanistic bet is that binding the Type II conformation addresses underlying disease biology that Type I drugs miss, and can salvage patients who’ve gone resistant. Preclinical data from ASH last December showed a “superior efficacy profile” versus Jakafi in myeloproliferative neoplasm models.
The deal price is milestone-heavy. Lilly didn’t disclose the upfront versus potential clinical and regulatory payments, which complicates the valuation math. That structure suggests Lilly’s treating the $2.3B ceiling as aspirational, with real dollars tied to proof-of-concept data expected later in 2026.
Lilly wasn’t coming in cold: it was a “founding strategic investor” in Ajax and joined the $95 million Series C in 2024 alongside Goldman Sachs Alternatives and RA Capital Management. It already markets Olumiant, a JAK inhibitor developed by Incyte, globally for rheumatoid arthritis and severe alopecia areata.
The question the deal price can’t quite answer: what’s one Phase 1 asset worth if the clinical proof of concept doesn’t land?
— Diana Kowalski