Lilly agrees to acquire Orna Therapeutics for up to $2.4 billion

Eli Lilly and Company said on February 9, 2026, that it has agreed to acquire Orna Therapeutics, a Watertown, Massachusetts biotechnology company, for up to $2.4 billion in cash ^[1]. The payment includes an upfront amount plus additional payments tied to hitting certain clinical development goals ^[1]. The deal has not yet closed, and Lilly has not said when it expects the transaction to finish ^[1].

Orna's core technology uses engineered circular RNA, which the company calls oRNA, combined with lipid nanoparticles to deliver genetic instructions directly into the body ^[1]. The goal is to let a patient's own cells produce therapies inside the body, rather than removing cells, modifying them in a lab, and infusing them back — the standard approach for most CAR-T cancer treatments today ^[1].

Orna's lead program, called ORN-252, is a CD19-targeting "in vivo" CAR-T therapy meant to treat autoimmune diseases driven by B cells ^[1]. It is described as "clinical trial-ready," meaning it has not yet started human testing according to the announcement ^[1]. Lilly's Francisco Ramírez-Valle, who leads immunology research and early clinical development, said existing autologous CAR-T therapies — the ex vivo kind — have shown promise for autoimmune patients but are limited by "complexity, cost, and logistics" that make them hard to scale to a broader population ^[1]. Orna CEO Joe Bolen said the company's circular RNA and delivery technology could "unlock in vivo CAR-T therapies for patients across a wide range of B cell-driven autoimmune diseases" ^[1].

Lilly's legal advisor on the deal is Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP; Orna's financial advisor is Lazard, and its legal counsel is Goodwin Procter LLP ^[1]. Lilly said it will determine how to account for the acquisition under standard accounting rules once the deal closes, and the transaction will then show up in the company's financial results and guidance ^[1].

Why it matters for patients

This deal has nothing to do with a current GLP-1 medication like Zepbound or Mounjaro, and it does not change anything about semaglutide or tirzepatide products already on the market. But it matters to people following Lilly because it shows the company using cash generated by its incretin business to move into entirely new areas of medicine, including autoimmune disease ^[2]. Lilly has described itself as working on immune system disorders alongside diabetes, obesity, and other conditions ^[1].

For patients with autoimmune diseases driven by B cells, the promise here is a future treatment that could work like CAR-T cancer therapy but without the need for lab processing of a patient's own cells, which today makes CAR-T expensive and hard to access ^[1]. That could, in theory, make cell therapy available to more people if it works. But this program has not yet entered human clinical trials, based on what Lilly and Orna have disclosed, so how well it will work in patients, how safe it will be, and when it might reach the market are not yet known ^[1].

What happens next

The acquisition is a definitive agreement, not a completed sale, and the companies have not given a specific closing date ^[1]. Once the deal closes, Lilly plans to advance ORN-252 toward clinical testing for B cell-driven autoimmune diseases, though no trial start date has been announced ^[1]. Financial details of the acquisition, including how it affects Lilly's earnings, will be reflected in the company's results after the deal is finalized ^[1].