Eli Lilly and Company and NextCure, Inc. have announced a multi-year collaboration focused on the discovery and development of immuno-oncology therapies. The collaboration seeks to discover novel cancer targets utilizing NextCure's proprietary FIND-IO platform.

Under the terms of the agreement, Lilly and NextCure will each receive options to exclusively license antibodies resulting from the collaboration. NextCure will receive an upfront payment of $25 million, and will be eligible for development and commercial milestones and royalty payments, should Lilly successfully develop and commercialize new cancer therapies resulting from the collaboration. Additionally, Lilly has made a $15 million equity investment in NextCure.

"The emerging field of immuno-oncology is offering new treatment options and hope to cancer patients," said Greg Plowman, M.D., Ph.D., vice president of oncology research at Lilly. "Through this collaboration, we hope to leverage NextCure's discovery platform to expand the reach of this class of groundbreaking treatments by identifying novel cancer targets that could enable the development of a new generation of immuno-oncology therapies."