Juvena Therapeutics and Lilly collaborate on muscle health drugs

California-based clinical-stage biotech Juvena Therapeutics has entered a global licensing and multi-target research collaboration with US pharma major Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) to discover, develop, and commercialize drug candidates that improve muscle health and body composition.

Lilly is committing more than $650 million to the deal announced Wednesday. As part of the collaboration, Juvena will leverage JuvNET, the world’s first, fully integrated, AI-enabled screening platform for mapping the therapeutic potential of stem cell-secreted proteins, developed by Juvena. The collaboration will identify muscle targeting drug candidates from Juvena’s proprietary library of human stem-cell secreted proteins for improved body composition and muscle health.

“We are thrilled to demonstrate the power of our fully integrated AI-enabled platform to accelerate the discovery and development of therapeutics with transformative potential that promote healthspan in individuals facing chronic conditions like obesity and frailty,” said Dr Hanadie Yousef, co-founder and chief executive of Juvena Therapeutics. “Particularly as a strong body of evidence demonstrates the link between muscle health and enhanced metabolism, mobility, and even long-term disease prevention and overall health, we look forward to advancing our pro-metabolic and muscle regenerative discoveries and continuing to leverage Juvena’s proprietary stem-cell derived protein library to identify novel targets and deliver better treatments for patients with efficiency and purpose,” he added.