Eli Lilly & Co. said Monday it will buy Boston gene therapy maker Kelonia Therapeutics for at least $3.25 billion in cash, a deal that could climb to $7 billion if clinical and commercial milestones are met. The acquisition gives Lilly access to Kelonia’s blood cancer treatment, KLN-1010, and another foothold in the fast-moving cell therapy race.
KLN-1010 is designed to genetically modify patients’ immune cells without removing them from the body, then reprogram those cells to attack cancer as a CAR-T therapy. Lilly research chief Jacob Van Naarden said the early clinical data are highly encouraging, describing the drug as both a possible advance for people with multiple myeloma and a proof of concept for Kelonia’s platform.
Kevin Friedman, Kelonia’s chief executive, said the partnership will help “broaden the reach of cell therapy beyond the current CAR-T landscape,” reflecting Lilly’s bet that the technology can eventually be used against a wide range of cancers and other diseases. Kelonia has 62 employees, most of them in Boston, and the companies said the deal is expected to close in the second half of 2026.
The purchase would be Lilly’s at least third acquisition of a Massachusetts company this year, underscoring how aggressively the drugmaker has been investing in the Boston biotech corridor. In February, Lilly said it would buy Watertown biotech Orna Therapeutics for up to $2.4 billion, and a month later it announced a roughly $6.3 billion deal for Centessa Pharmaceuticals, a narcolepsy drug maker with its U.S. headquarters in Boston.
Lilly has also lined up other area collaborations, including work with Nimbus Therapeutics on an oral obesity drug and a partnership with Cambridge-based Repertoire Immune Medicines on autoimmune disease therapies. The company opened a $700 million research and development center in Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood in 2024 and said it planned to eventually employ about 500 workers there, adding to a local footprint that now spans deals, partnerships and in-house research. The question for investors is whether that Boston spending spree starts to translate into medicines fast enough to justify the price tags.