METIS TECHBIO-P (07666.HK): Strategic LNP Delivery Collaboration with Eli Lilly; Up to ~US$1.1bn Milestones

NewTimeSpace News: On 19 October 2026, Metis TechBio Co., Ltd. (the "Company") voluntarily announced that it has entered into a strategic collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company ("Lilly") focused on researching and discovering novel lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery solutions aimed at achieving tissue-specific delivery of therapeutics. Under the agreement, Metis TechBio will receive an upfront payment of over US$10 million and is eligible to receive development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments of up to approximately US$1.1 billion in aggregate; it will also be eligible for tiered royalties at single-digit percentage rates on annual net sales of products resulting from the collaboration.

The announcement disclosed that, under the agreement, Metis TechBio will use its proprietary AI-driven ionisable lipid discovery and optimisation platform, AiLNP, to develop next-generation delivery technologies with the potential to improve LNP targeting and biodistribution, while Lilly will contribute its expertise in drug discovery, development and commercialisation to support the collaboration. By combining Metis TechBio's generative and predictive AI capabilities for rational LNP design and optimisation with Lilly's scientific and development expertise, the parties aim to discover and optimise novel LNP architectures that enhance tissue specificity, improve therapeutic efficacy and broaden applications across multiple disease areas.

The Company stated that Metis TechBio was co-founded in 2020 by Dr. Hongming Chen, a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, and MIT scientists Dr. Lai Caida and Dr. Wang Wenshou, and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on 13 May 2026 as the "world's first AI drug delivery stock". The Company independently developed NanoForge, the world's first AI-driven nano-delivery platform, and owns the world's largest LNP lipid library at the ten-million scale, building four core solutions on NanoForge: AiLNP, AiRNA, AiProtein and AiTEM. It has achieved delivery capability for precise targeting of eight key organs or tissues including the liver, lungs, muscle and immune cells, marking a breakthrough in multi-organ, multi-tissue targeted delivery.