Beam’s Cost Cutting, Deal with Lilly to Provide Breathing Room into 2026

Beam Therapeutics has announced portfolio priorities and plans to streamline its business operations including a reduction in headcount of approximately 100 employees, about 20% of its current workforce, which is anticipated to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2023. In related news, Beam also reported it expects to receive $250 million from Eli Lilly for certain rights covered under Beam’s collaboration and license agreement with Verve Therapeutics. These include Beam’s opt-in rights to co-develop and co-commercialize Verve’s base editing programs for cardiovascular disease and a liver-mediated, cardiovascular target.

Under the terms of the agreement with Lilly, Beam will receive a $200 million upfront payment and $50 million equity investment. Beam is also eligible to receive up to $350 million in potential future development-stage payments upon the completion of certain clinical, regulatory and alliance events for a total of up to $600 million in potential total deal consideration.

The Lilly deal, combined with Beam’s anticipated cost savings, and the company’s balance of cash, cash equivalents and investment securities, are expected to fund Beam’s revised operating plan into 2026.

“As the pioneers in base editing, we’ve had a long-standing vision of enabling a wide range of disease-modifying therapies based on precision genome editing. Our strategy to achieve this has been to advance a diversified portfolio of wholly owned programs, continue to innovate in our platform, and establish creative partnerships that expand the reach of base editing and drive both near- and long-term value creation. Our initial collaboration with Verve and this new transaction with Lilly are exemplary of our execution of that strategy,” said John Evans, chief executive officer of Beam. “This deal provides meaningful upfront capital to advance our portfolio of clinical- and research-stage programs, with significant additional value achievable as the Verve programs advance through development. In parallel, it provides Verve with a world-class partner for the long term, given Lilly’s deep expertise and resources in the cardiovascular space.” (Source: Beam Therapeutics Website, 19 & 31 October, 2023)