Eli Lilly has agreed to buy Merida Biosciences for up to $2.875 billion in cash. The Lilly Merida acquisition was announced on 31 August 2026. It hands Lilly a clinical stage platform built to strip single disease causing antibodies out of circulation. The lead programme targets Graves’ disease and thyroid eye disease. Both sit in a market reshaped over the past eighteen months by two approvals and one late stage failure.
In its announcement of the transaction, Lilly said the figure is inclusive of an upfront payment and contingent milestone payments. The company did not break out the upfront sum. It also did not disclose a price per share. Closing is expected in the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory clearances and customary conditions.
What the Lilly Merida acquisition brings to the pipeline
Merida is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It emerged publicly in April 2025 with $121 million in Series A financing. Bain Capital Life Sciences, BVF Partners and Third Rock Ventures led that round. GV and the Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Funds also took part. Third Rock had seeded the company in 2022.
The company engineers Fc based biologics that bind one chosen pathogenic antibody. The bound antibody is then marked for elimination. Merida also targets the B cells that produce it. The stated aim is deep, selective depletion without broad immunosuppression. That distinction matters to prescribers weighing long term infection risk.
Three programmes transfer with the deal. MER511 targets the thyroid stimulating hormone receptor autoantibody. Lilly places it in Phase 1 for Graves’ disease and thyroid eye disease. MER769 targets immunoglobulin E and remains in IND enabling studies. MER683 targets PLA2R in primary membranous nephropathy, also at the IND enabling stage.
The allergy programme may prove the larger commercial prize. Lilly said MER769 addresses food allergy, asthma, chronic spontaneous urticaria and other IgE driven diseases. Those populations dwarf the thyroid indications. None of that work has yet reached the clinic.
Merida was founded by Dario Gutierrez, Ph.D., who serves as chief scientific officer. Pierre Bruhns, Ph.D., of the Pasteur Institute is a co-founder. Mark Shlomchik, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh is also named as a co-founder.
Lilly pointed to early clinical signals in its announcement. It said initial Phase 1 data showed robust reductions in pathogenic thyroid stimulating antibodies. It also described a favourable initial safety profile. No numerical results were published alongside the statement.
“We’re building our pipeline around therapies that meaningfully change the course of disease,” said Francisco Ramírez-Valle, M.D., Ph.D. He said the aim is change, “not just its downstream effects”. He is senior vice president of immunology research and early clinical development at Lilly. He said Lilly sees potential to apply the approach across a broad range of antibody driven diseases.
Adam Townsend, chief executive officer of Merida, framed the science in similar terms. “Merida was founded to fundamentally change how autoimmune and allergic diseases are treated,” he said. His stated goal is targeting the antibodies that drive disease rather than suppressing immunity broadly.
A thyroid eye disease market that has just been reset
Thyroid eye disease is no longer an untreated niche. Amgen’s teprotumumab, sold as Tepezza, remains the reference product. It generated $1,903 million in global sales during 2025, a rise of 3 per cent. Fourth quarter sales reached $457 million, down 1 per cent year on year. Amgen’s full year 2025 results set out both figures. Growth has therefore flattened.
Competition arrived in June 2026. The FDA approved Viridian Therapeutics’ veligrotug, branded Lumvoa. Viridian described it as a first for the indication. The company said no earlier TED product had shown significant diplopia benefit in both active and chronic disease. Viridian set a wholesale acquisition cost of $450,000 for an average 75kg patient. The company said that puts Lumvoa at parity with Tepezza. The course is five infusions over 12 weeks. Tepezza requires eight infusions over 21 weeks.
Both products inhibit the insulin like growth factor 1 receptor. Merida’s asset does not. It removes the autoantibody that drives the underlying thyroid disorder. That is an upstream approach rather than a downstream one. The Lilly Merida acquisition therefore buys a different shot at the same patients.
Where antibody clearance has already stumbled
Investors have seen antibody lowering fail in this indication before. Immunovant reported topline results from two Phase 3 studies of batoclimab on 2 April 2026. The studies missed their primary endpoint, a proptosis responder rate of at least 2mm at week 24. No new safety signals were identified.
Batoclimab blocks the neonatal Fc receptor, lowering circulating immunoglobulin G broadly. Merida’s design is narrower and targets one antibody species. That contrast is the central scientific argument behind the deal. Immunovant has since prioritised IMVT-1402 and expects Graves’ disease topline data during 2027.
Why the Lilly Merida acquisition matters in the UK
British prescribers only recently gained a licensed option. The MHRA granted Amgen a marketing authorisation for Tepezza on 7 May 2025. Amgen described it as the first therapy specifically licensed in the UK for moderate to severe thyroid eye disease. The company cited British Thyroid Foundation figures putting the affected UK population at around 50,000 people. A licence is not the same as NHS funding. NICE published draft guidance in June 2025 recommending against routine use. The committee found the cost effectiveness estimates too uncertain. Final guidance has not been published.
Europe followed a similar path. The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use recommended approval on 25 April 2025. The recommended indication covered adults with moderate to severe thyroid eye disease. The European Commission granted the marketing authorisation in June 2025.
The addressable population is larger than the ophthalmic figures suggest. A 2020 meta analysis in Clinical Endocrinology pooled prevalence data across Graves’ disease cohorts. It found thyroid eye disease in roughly 40 per cent of those patients. A therapy acting on the thyroid autoantibody itself could reach people before eye involvement develops. That prospect is what makes the Lilly Merida acquisition strategically interesting to endocrinologists as well as ophthalmologists.
A year of Lilly deal making
Lilly has spent 2026 buying pipeline at pace. It opened the year with Ventyx Biosciences in January, adding oral anti-inflammatory small molecules. It agreed to acquire Centessa Pharmaceuticals for up to $7.8 billion on 31 March. It followed with Kelonia Therapeutics for up to $7 billion on 20 April. In July it added AtaiBeckley at an equity value of roughly $2.8 billion. Contingent value rights could lift that total towards $3.8 billion.
Scrip counted Merida as Lilly’s thirteenth acquisition of 2026. The outlet did not set out the basis for that count.
Readers tracking the wider pattern can follow every billion dollar biopharma deal of 2026 in our running tracker. Our review of the first half of 2026 sets out the drivers behind the current cycle.
What to watch next
Several questions remain open. The first is the split between upfront cash and milestones, which neither party disclosed. The second is the Phase 1 dataset itself. Lilly characterised the antibody reductions but released no figures.
Timing is the third question. The Phase 1 NEXUS study began on 19 December 2025 and is still recruiting. It plans to enrol 100 participants across six treatment groups. Its estimated completion date is 24 July 2028. Registrational work in Graves’ disease would sit well beyond that point. The registered NEXUS trial enrols Graves’ disease patients only. It excludes people with moderate to severe thyroid eye disease.
Competitive timing therefore favours the incumbents for now. Tepezza and Lumvoa will hold the infused market for several years. Subcutaneous and oral IGF-1R candidates from Amgen, Viridian and Sling sit behind them. The Lilly Merida acquisition is a bet on mechanism rather than on near term revenue. The sum is small against Lilly’s other 2026 transactions.
The regulatory path is the final unknown. No agency has yet reviewed a selective autoantibody degrader. Lilly will need endpoints that capture antibody removal and clinical benefit together. That conversation starts long before any filing. On the evidence released so far, the Lilly Merida acquisition is an early stage purchase priced for optionality.
