Did Eli Lilly Just Make a Deal for Its Next Blockbuster Drug?

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) has been the winner in the massive GLP-1 drug category, the class of medications that have proven extremely effective in lowering blood sugar levels and promoting weight loss.

In fact, last year Lilly's medication -- called tirzepatide, which treats both type 2 diabetes and obesity -- became the best-selling drug on the planet. In doing so, it knocked Keytruda, the cancer immunotherapy drug made by Merck, off the throne. Tirzepatide is sold as Mounjaro for treating type 2 diabetes and as Zepbound for weight loss.

Sales of tirzepatide have pushed Eli Lilly's stock 400% higher over the past five years. But apparently investors think that's old news. So far in 2026 Lilly's stock is down about 4%.

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Lilly made a huge acquisition this week

But there may be very bright news on the horizon for the drug giant. It's possible that it just made a deal for the next blockbuster drug. On Feb. 9, Lilly agreed to purchase Boston area-based biotech Orna Therapeutics for $2.4 billion in cash. Orna is developing innovative medicines using something called circular RNA. These drugs can manipulate a patient's genes and/or cells to fight diseases, in particular autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.

So far, these gene therapy medicines have treated a patient's cells in a lab before being reinfused into the body. Orna, however, is developing a therapy with the working name ORN-252 that allows the patient's body to generate the changes needed to fight the disease, rather than modifying them in a lab. It's called in vivo chimeric antigen receptor T-cell technology ("in vivo" is Latin for "in the living"), and while it's still in early-stage development, the therapy appears to be very promising.

Marketing the new drug could be years away, however

According to Lilly's announcement of the acquisition deal, ORN-252 is "clinical trial-ready," which means it could still be several years away from commercial sales. That seems like a long time indeed, but drug companies need new drugs in the pipeline, as effective market exclusivity of drugs is often only 10 to 12 years.

Lilly has been busy filling its pipeline. Just a day before the Orna announcement, the company announced it was paying $350 up front to collaborate with a Chinese biotechnology firm to develop treatments for immune disorders and cancer, and in January it announced another billion-dollar deal with a German company to develop hearing-loss gene therapies.

Due to long development cycles and clinical trials, pharmaceutical stocks tend to be buy-and-hold investments. But they can pay off, as the rapid ascent of Lilly's share price over five years shows.

Matthew Benjamin has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Merck. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.