Lilly Wants To Gamble On Dice’s Oral IL-17 Drugs For Psoriasis

In a deal that may bring Eli Lilly and Company an oral alternative to blockbuster Taltz (ixekizumab) for psoriasis, the Indianapolis pharma unveiled an agreement on 20 June to acquire DICE Therapeutics, Inc. for approximately $2.4bn, the sixth-largest biopharmaceutical M&A deal of 2023.

Under the deal, expected to close in Q3, Lilly would acquire Dice’s pipeline of oral interleukin-17 inhibitors as well as the South San Francisco firm’s DELSCAPE discovery platform, which also has yielded a preclinical oral PD-L1 candidate for cancer and preclinical programs to address gastrointestinal and fibrotic disease. Taltz, which generated global sales of approximately $2