Lilly signs $64M takeover deal for SGX

US drug major Eli Lilly has signed a definitive merger agreement for the acquisition of San Diego, California-based biotechnology company SGX Pharmaceuticals in an all-cash transaction.

Under the terms of the deal, Lilly will acquire all of the outstanding shares of SGX common stock for $3.00 per share, for a total price of $64.0 million. Lilly will gain access to SGX' structure-guided drug discovery platform. The US drug major will also benefit from FAST, SGX' fragment-based, protein structure drug discovery technology, as well as a portfolio of preclinical oncology compounds focused on a number of high-value kinase targets.

Since entering into an initial collaboration in 2003, Lilly has partnered with SGX to determine three-dimensional structures of key Lilly drug targets utilizing SGX' proprietary X-ray crystallography technology. The ongoing collaboration also provides Lilly with access to the SGX synchrotron beamline facility, SGX-CAT.