Eli Lilly has agreed to buy Orna Therapeutics for US$2.4bn.
The deal was announced on Monday.
Orna is developing a treatment that uses circular RNA and specialised lipid particles to prompt a patient’s body to produce the cell therapies needed to fight disease.
Circular RNA is a form of genetic material that forms a closed loop, making it more stable than traditional RNA.
Francisco Ramírez-Valle, senior vice president and head of immunology research and early clinical development at Eli Lilly, said the technology has the potential to “unlock an entirely new class of genetic medicines and cell therapies for patients who today have limited or no treatment options.”
In August, LexisNexis named Orna Therapeutics “the most innovative biotech startup” in the world. The list included three other Boston-area biotech companies: ElevateBio, Manus and Arbor Biotech.
Marco Ritcher is senior director of IP analytics and strategy for LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions.
He said: “The world’s most innovative biotech startups walk the line between science and science fiction, as they unravel the secrets of our genetic code, create miraculous cures for intractable diseases, design and power new foods for humanity, and invent new bioalternatives to key materials and products.”
Indiana-based Eli Lilly is the US’s largest pharmaceutical company by market value and has been developing medicines for nearly 150 years.
Last year, the company acquired Massachusetts-based Scorpion Therapeutics, which develops small-molecule precision oncology therapies, for US$2.5bn, and Verve Therapeutics, a clinical-stage company developing medicines for cardiovascular disease, for US$1.13bn.
According to the 2025 Massachusetts Biopharma Funding and Pipeline Report, 36 Massachusetts companies were acquired for a total of US$20bn in 2025.
That total is significantly down from US$42.51bn in 2024, which included the US$13.88bn Bristol Myers Squibb acquisition of Karuna Therapeutics.
The report also found that 12 Massachusetts companies made acquisitions last year for a disclosed total of US$299m.
That compared with 2024, when 25 Massachusetts companies made acquisitions totalling US$10.62bn.
