Lilly licenses Hanmi's GLP-2 agonist sonefpeglutide in USD 1.26b deal

Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) has agreed to pay USD 75 million upfront to license sonefpeglutide, a long-acting GLP-2 receptor agonist biologic, from South Korean drugmaker Hanmi Pharm. Co., Ltd. (KRX: 128940), in a pharmaceutical licensing agreement that could total up to USD 1.26 billion including milestones. The deal grants Lilly exclusive worldwide rights — excluding South Korea — to develop, manufacture, and commercialize the LAPSGLP-2 analog across multiple indications, with Hanmi retaining rights to complete its ongoing global Phase II trial in short bowel syndrome (SBS).

Under the agreement, Hanmi is eligible to receive up to USD 1.185 billion in clinical development, regulatory approval, and commercialization milestone payments, in addition to sales-based royalties following product launch. Specific milestone amounts and royalty rates were not disclosed.

Deal context

Sonefpeglutide is a PEGylated GLP-2 receptor agonist engineered using Hanmi's proprietary LAPSCOVERY platform, which extends the circulating half-life of peptides and proteins through site-specific conjugation to an aglycosylated immunoglobulin Fc fragment via a non-peptidyl polymer linker. The architecture exploits FcRn-mediated endosomal recycling — the same mechanism that gives IgG antibodies their roughly 21-day half-life — while the aglycosylated Fc eliminates effector functions that would be inappropriate for a non-antibody therapeutic context.

GLP-2, the native hormone that sonefpeglutide mimics, has a circulating half-life of approximately seven minutes, making unmodified peptide therapeutics clinically impractical at meaningful dosing intervals. The approved GLP-2 analog teduglutide (Gattex, Takeda) requires daily subcutaneous injection; sonefpeglutide's extended half-life is designed to enable once-weekly or less frequent dosing, which would represent a meaningful improvement in patient convenience if borne out in Phase III data.

GLP-2 receptor activation promotes intestinal mucosal growth, reduces inflammation, and supports repair and regeneration of the intestinal lining — mechanisms with established relevance to SBS, a rare condition in which patients lose absorptive capacity following surgical removal of large portions of the small intestine and often require long-term parenteral nutrition. Hanmi is currently conducting a global Phase II trial in SBS and will complete that study independently; Lilly will lead any additional clinical programs it elects to pursue based on the available nonclinical and clinical data package.

Beyond SBS, the press release indicates Lilly intends to explore additional indications, though none were named. The LAPSCOVERY platform has previously generated clinical-stage assets in adjacent metabolic areas — including efpeglenatide, a GLP-1 analog that Hanmi previously licensed to Sanofi and which completed a Phase III cardiovascular outcomes trial, albeit Sanofi pulled out of that molecule's development in 2020.

Industry and transaction context

The deal is the latest in a sequence of licensing agreements Lilly has signed with biotech companies over the past 18 months, reflecting a sustained effort to source external assets across modalities. In May 2025, Lilly signed a USD 415 million licensing agreement with Alchemab Therapeutics for ATLX-1282, a first-in-class neurodegenerative candidate. That same month, South Korea-based Rznomics entered a global licensing agreement with Lilly for RNA-editing therapeutics, and in January 2026, Seamless Therapeutics announced a global research collaboration with Lilly focused on programmable recombinase-based gene therapies for hearing loss.

For Lilly, the transaction adds a gastrointestinal rare disease asset to a portfolio historically concentrated in diabetes and obesity. The GLP-2 receptor mechanism is biologically distinct from GLP-1 — sonefpeglutide does not carry the weight-loss or glycemic control profile of Lilly's tirzepatide franchise — but the intestinotrophic biology has potential applicability beyond SBS to other conditions involving intestinal barrier dysfunction, a space that has attracted increasing clinical interest. Whether Lilly pursues those broader indications will depend on the Phase II SBS data Hanmi is generating, the full package of which Lilly will inherit upon trial completion.

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