Our Story

Lilly Ventures has its roots in
the scientific tradition of
Eli Lilly and Company. Our
investment philosophy drives
us to seek great companies
with compelling life science innovations.

Our Team

Our collaborative partnership leverages the collective experience, deep expertise, and networks of our investment professionals for the benefit of our portfolio companies.

Aileron Announces Expansion of Roche Collaboration
November 16 2011

Aileron Therapeutics, Inc. announced the expansion of an existing drug discovery collaboration with Roche adding a third target in inflammatory disease to the existing oncology targets.

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Cerulean Pharma Presents Phase 1/2a Lung Cancer Clinical Study of CRLX101
November 14 2011

Cerulean Pharma presented final data from the non-small cell lung cancer Phase 1/2a clinical study of CRLX101 at the AACR-NCI-EORTC conference. The drug was well tolerated at the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) and provided encouraging progression free survival (PFS) times.

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Viamet Appoints Chief Medical Officer
November 03 2011

Viamet Pharmaceuticals Appoints Former Novartis Executive as Chief Medical Officer.

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Gilead Licenses GlobeImmune HBV Program
October 24 2011

GlobeImmune and Gilead Announce Hepatitis B License and Collaboration Agreement.

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Viamet Initiates Antifungal Clinical Trials
September 14 2011

Viamet Pharmaceuticals Initiates Phase 1 Clinical Trials for Best-in-Class Novel Antifungal VT-1161.

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HemaQuest Completes Enrollment of Sickle Cell Phase 2 Trial
September 12 2011

HemaQuest Pharmaceuticals, Inc., completed enrollment of a 52-patient randomized, multi-dose Phase 2 study in patients with sickle cell disease, designed to evaluate the safety and tolerability of HQK-1001.

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Viamet and NIH to Develop Novel Anti-Fungal
July 28 2011

Viamet anti-fungal program was selected for inclusion by the National Institutes of Health program for Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) Program.

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Cerulean Initiates Randomized Phase 2 of CRLX101 in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
July 12 2011

Cerulean Pharma Inc., a leader in designing and developing tumor-targeted nanopharmaceuticals, today announced the dosing of the first patients with CRLX101 in a randomized, controlled non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) Phase 2 clinical trial.

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Receptos Hires Industry Veteran as Chief Medical Officer
June 30 2011

Sheila Gujrathi, M.D., joins Receptos as Chief Medical Officer from Bristol-Meyers Squibb.

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Nimbus Discovery Secures $24MM Series A Financing
June 28 2011

Nimbus Discovery LLC, a biopharmaceutical company using state-of-the-art computational technology to discover novel medicines against exciting but previously inaccessible disease targets, today announced the close of a $24MM Series A financing. The investment was co-led by Atlas Venture, Lilly Ventures, and SR One.

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FORMA Therapeutics Grants Genentech Exclusive Rights to Acquire a Pre-clinical Cancer Program
June 27 2011

FORMA Therapeutics announced today that it entered into an agreement granting Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, exclusive worldwide rights to acquire a pre-clinical small molecule program against a single undisclosed cancer target.

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GlobeImmune Reports Positive Results on Two Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines
June 01 2011

GlobeImmune announces safety and immunogenicity data from clinical trials in lung cancer with KRAS mutations and CEA expressing cancers.

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Sutro's Biochemical Protein Synthesis Technology Enables Rapid Production and Scale-Up
May 19 2011

Sutro Biopharma, which is developing novel and biosuperior protein therapeutics with improved pharmaceutical properties, announced that a study published in the July issue of Biotechnology and Bioengineering demonstrates that the company’s biochemical protein synthesis technology platform enables fast and high-yield protein synthesis, scale-up, and straightforward purification by producing a fully bioactive, human, cytokine at titers of 700 mg/L in only 10 hours.

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Cerulean Pharma Appoints Chief Medical Officer
May 17 2011

Cerulean Pharma Inc. appoints Edward Garmey, M.D. to serve as Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President.

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HemaQuest Announces First Patient Enrolled in Phase 2 Clinical Study of Sickle Cell Disease
April 25 2011

HemaQuest Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company focused on developing small molecule therapeutics to treat hemoglobin disorders, announced that clinical investigators have enrolled the first patient in a randomized multi-dose Phase 2 study of HQK-1001 in patients with sickle cell disease. The study is expected to enroll approximately 50 patients. The primary objective is safety and tolerability of HQK-1001, with several secondary objectives including an increase in fetal hemoglobin production. HemaQuest expects interim results from the study in late 2011 and final results in the first quarter of 2012.

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Aileron Adds Industry R&D Veterans
April 11 2011

Aileron hires industry veteran Anthony Manning, Ph.D. as Senior Vice President of Research and Preclinical Development.

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Cerulean Presents Phase 2a Oncology Clinical Data at AACR
April 04 2011

Cerulean presents Phase 2a interim clinical data that highlight observations of stable disease in advanced non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) patients.

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Prize4Life Awards $1 Million Prize for Major Milestone in ALS Research
February 07 2011

Prize4Life partnered with InnoCentive to launch the $1M ALS Biomarker Prize with the goal of accelerating the development of a biomarker—an inexpensive and easy-to-use tool that can accurately measure the progression of ALS in patients. An effective biomarker will make clinical trials of ALS drugs cheaper, quicker, and more efficient.

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Receptos Initiated Phase 1 Clinical Trial
January 27 2011

Receptos, Inc., announced today that their highly selective sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1 (S1P1) agonist, RPC1063, has been administered to the first subject in a single-ascending and multiple-ascending dose design Phase 1 clinical safety study.

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Former FDA Commissioner Joins Viamet Board
January 19 2011

Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D., Former FDA Commissioner and Leading Prostate Cancer Expert, Elected to Viamet Pharmaceuticals Board of Directors.

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Protagonist Establishes Partnership with Ironwood Pharmaceuticals
January 18 2011

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: IRWD) and Protagonist Therapeutics, Inc. announced that they have entered into a collaboration to discover novel peptides for potential development by Ironwood. The collaboration capitalizes on Protagonist's proprietary disulfide rich peptide (DRP) technology platform, and provides Ironwood with the opportunity to develop novel peptides and treatments against clinically–validated targets in therapeutic areas with significant unmet medical needs.

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Sutro Biopharma Forges Partnership with Pfizer
January 07 2011

Sutro Biopharma enters into a multiyear collaboration with Pfizer for the research, development and commercialization of novel peptide-based therapeutics.

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Receptos in Exclusive Collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company
January 06 2011

Receptos announced an exclusive collaboration focused on structure determination and lead generation for a high value G-protein Coupled Receptor (GPCR) target.

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Avid Closing Press Release
December 20 2010

Avid acquisition closes.

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Sutro Biopharma Appoints Trevor Hallam, Ph.D., as Chief Scientific Officer
December 08 2010

Sutro Biopharma today announced that it has appointed Trevor Hallam, Ph.D., as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO). Dr. Hallam will lead Sutro's ongoing efforts in the application of the company's proprietary protein biochemical synthesis platform for the research and development of novel and biosuperior therapeutics.

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HemaQuest Announces Phase II Results
December 07 2010

HemaQuest Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on developing small molecule therapeutics to treat hemoglobin-associated diseases, presented encouraging results at the 2010 ASH meeting from its first two clinical trials evaluating its lead product candidate, HQK-1001 in patients with sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia.

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Faheem Hasnain Named President and Chief Executive Officer of Receptos
December 02 2010

Industry veteran will strengthen Receptos’s clinical and commercial expertise in multiple sclerosis and expand activities including the potential to acquire additional focused therapeutic assets.

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Eisai and FORMA Therapeutics Enter into Broad Drug Discovery Collaboration
November 17 2010

Eisai and FORMA Therapeutics announced a strategic drug discovery collaboration. Eisai will have non-exclusive access to FORMA's Diversity Oriented Synthesis (DOS) chemistry-generated compound library and cell-based screening platforms to support the discovery of novel compounds for Eisai's pipeline and an option for technology transfer of FORMA's cell-based screening platform.

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Cylene Advances Industry Only CK2 Inhibitor
November 16 2010

Cylene Pharmaceuticals presents advances in the development of their first-in-class CK2 inhibitor, CX-4945, at the 22nd EORTC-NCI-AACR symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Targets.

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GlobeImmune Announces Improves HCV End of Treatment Response in Phase 2b
October 20 2010

GlobeImmune Announces HCV End of Treatment Response in Phase 2b

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Cylene Initiates CK2 Inhibitor Phase 1 in Multiple Myeloma
September 24 2010

Cylene Pharmaceuticals announced the initiation of a Phase 1 clinical trial of their first-in-class CK2 inhibitor, CX-4945 in patients with multiple myeloma.

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Roche and Aileron Multi-target Deal
August 24 2010

Roche enters $1.1B deal with Aileron on up to five undisclosed targets in oncology, virology, inflammation, metabolism and central nervous system.

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CGI to be Acquired by Gilead Sciences
July 14 2010

Gilead Science and CGI announce the signing of a Definitive Agreement whereby Gilead will acquire CGI.

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Aileron R&D Spotlight Chemical Biology Drug Design
June 04 2010

R&D Spotlight describes Stapeled Peptides as a revolutionary new class fo drugs to address thousands of currently undruggable targets.

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InnoCentive – The Art of Generating Wisdom From Crowds
April 23 2010

Remember the old "suggestion box" that hit up workers or customers for new ideas? That concept has matured in the 21st century. It's now known as crowdsourcing.

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HemaQuest Raises $12M Series B Financing
April 21 2010

Announced today the closing of a $12M Series B financing led by new investor, Aberdare Ventures.

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AVID Positive Interim Phase III Alzheimer's Imaging Results
April 14 2010

Early data show strong correlation between florbetapir PET imaging and Alzheimer’s disease beta-amyloid pathology

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Viamet Appoints Bill Moore as CSO
January 11 2010

Announced today that William Moore, Ph.D. has joined the company as Chief Scientific Officer.

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Intradigm Merges with Silence Therapeutics
January 05 2010

Silence Therapeutics plc (“the Company”) (AIM: SLN) and Intradigm Corporation announce that the companies have completed their merger to form a leading company in the field of RNAi (RNA interference).

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FORMA Raises $25M Series B
December 01 2009

Announced that it has closed on a Series B financing that raised a total of $25.5 million.

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Receptos Raises $25M Series A
November 23 2009

Announced the closing of a two-tranche $25 million Series A financing.

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Hydra BioSciences and Cubist Announce Pain Management Discovery Collaboration
October 19 2009

Hydra Biosciences and Cubist form collaboration to develop novel ion channel drugs for pain management.

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Viamet Raises $18M Series B
July 07 2009

Announced today that it has secured $18 million in a Series B financing to accelerate the development of its novel metalloenzyme inhibitors and to advance its Metallophile™ Technology platform.

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FORMA Appoints Ken Bair to Head R&D
June 29 2009

Kenneth W. Bair, Ph.D., has been appointed as Senior Vice President and Head of Research and Development.

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Aileron Named 2009 Fierce Biotech Top 15
June 29 2009

When Aileron announced its $40 million venture round earlier this month, the press zeroed in closely on the four big pharma venture arms that were crowding in to support the developer. The CEO says the company is on to a brand new way to develop therapeutics and there are clearly a lot of major players who want to have a front seat as researchers put a breakthrough theory to the test.

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Hydra BioSciences Demonstrates TRP Ion Channel Drugs can Treat Allergy-Induced Asthma
May 18 2009

Announced that research published by Hydra Biosciences scientists and collaborators at Yale University for the first time identified the ion channel TRPA1 as playing an essential role in allergic asthma and demonstrated that Hydra’s TRPA1 antagonist HC-030031 effectively treated allergic asthma in mice.

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GlobeImmune and Celgene Announce Global Oncology Alliance
May 15 2009

GlobeImmune, Inc. and Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ: CELG) today announced a worldwide strategic collaboration focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of multiple product candidates based on powerful, targeted molecular immunotherapy for the treatment of cancer.

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