Eli Lilly and Co. entered a definitive agreement to acquire Akouos, Inc., a precision genetic medicine company developing a portfolio of adeno-associated viral gene therapies for the treatment of inner ear conditions, for approximately $487 million. The agreement has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies.
 
“We are honored to work with the talented team at Akouos who are breaking new ground in the science of treating hearing loss,” said Andrew C. Adams, Ph.D., senior vice president of genetic medicine and co-director of the Institute for Genetic Medicine, Lilly. “We believe that with Lilly’s resources, global reach, and growing capabilities in gene therapy, we can help Akouos fulfill their mission of making healthy hearing available to all.”
 
Akouos has integrated expertise across otology, inner ear drug delivery, and gene therapy with the goal of addressing disabling hearing loss. Akouos’s lead product candidate, AK-OTOF, is a gene therapy for the treatment of hearing loss due to mutations in the otoferlin gene (OTOF). Additional pipeline programs span multiple inner ear conditions, and include AK-CLRN1 for Usher Type 3A, an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by progressive loss of both hearing and vision; GJB2 (which encodes connexin 26) for a common form of monogenic deafness and hearing loss; and AK-antiVEGF for the treatment of vestibular schwannoma.
 
“Gene therapy offers tremendous opportunity to provide durable treatments for patients with genetically defined disease; this is our second acquisition in gene therapy, following the 2021 acquisition of Prevail Therapeutics,” added Daniel Skovronsky, M.D., Ph.D., Lilly’s chief scientific and medical officer, and president of Lilly Research Laboratories. “With Akouos, we are optimistic that we can make a difference for people with hearing loss and other inner ear conditions.”