Archives: In the News Items

Following their 2022 cardiometabolic tie-up to target AMPK, Lilly is partnering with Nimbus on structure-based design for obesity in an undisclosed, “challenging” target.

Eli Lilly will partner with Nimbus Therapeutics to develop an oral treatment for obesity and other metabolic diseases, through a multi-year research collaboration and exclusive, worldwide license agreement that could generate more than $1.3 billion for the Boston artificial intelligence (AI)-based drug developer.

• Nimbus and Eli Lilly collaborate to develop oral treatments for obesity and metabolic diseases, leveraging Nimbus’ computational drug design and Lilly’s metabolic expertise.
• The agreement includes $55 million in upfront and milestone payments, with potential for $1.3 billion in total payments and tiered royalties on global sales.

Hospitals were never meant to be familiar to me, yet for over twenty years MD Anderson became a place I could navigate by heart: the cafeteria where families gather between updates, the hidden cafés where you grab a moment to breathe, the lobbies where hope and fear sit quietly beside each other. I know the hallways that lead to conversations no family ever wants to have, and I know the small relief of stepping outside to feel the humid Houston air after hours at a loved one’s bedside.

company’s evolving pipeline and playbook for choosing the right risks in a noisy biotech environment. From Werner helicase for MSI-high cancers to a highly selective SIK2 program and GLP-1–adjacent strategies focused on body composition, Abbas details how Nimbus balances rigor, speed, and capital efficiency.

Nimbus Therapeutics is transforming drug discovery with computational chemistry and AI to design small molecules that precisely target disease. CEO Abbas Kazimi, who took the helm in March, is driving a “fail fast” approach that balances discipline with innovation. He joins Inside the ICE House to share how Nimbus is scaling its pipeline and shaping the future of precision medicine.

When Takeda in 2023 paid Nimbus Therapeutics $4 billion upfront and the potential for two additional $1 billion milestone payments for its experimental TYK2 inhibitor, the deal was an eye-popping validation of Nimbus’ approach. The company, an early innovator in a computational chemistry, has now integrated AI into its approach to drug discovery. And though it’s been an innovator in technology, it’s also been an innovator in its portfolio approach as an early example of an effective use of a hub-and-spoke business model. We spoke to Abbas Kazimi, CEO of Nimbus, about computational chemistry, how the company’s drug discovery approach has evolved with AI, and how its business model provides liquidity to investors and while making it easier to structure deals.

Computational chemistry combined with AI technologies has become a powerful tool for assessing small molecule properties, high-resolution protein structures, and molecular mechanism of action, as well as optimizing target selection and small molecule design.

CEO Abbas Kazimi and President of R&D Peter Tummino discuss how AI integrates into their discovery and clinical development work, and walk us through some of the company’s current programs.