Eli Lilly makes a new push into vaccines – here’s what to know
The Eli Lilly logo is seen at the company’s office in San Diego, California, USA on November 21, 2025.
Mike Blake | Reuters
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Eli Lilly‘s deal-making spree continues — but this time, the company is returning to a category it hasn’t been in for years: vaccines and infectious diseases.
The company announced Tuesday it would acquire three private vaccine makers in deals worth a total of about $4 billion. This includes:
- Up to $1.5 billion to acquire Curevo, a Seattle-area company developing a vaccine against shingles
- Up to $780 million to acquire Swiss firm LimmaTech Biologics targeting staph infections
- Up to $1.55 billion to acquire Vaccine Company, which is developing a vaccine against the Epstein-Barr virus
The agreements may have come as a surprise, especially at a time when vaccines face significant regulatory uncertainty and political pressure under the Trump administration. But analysts said the move was a result of Lilly’s decision to replace Lilly’s Dr. who served as the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine regulator for nearly a decade before resigning last year. He points out that it came a few months after he hired Peter Marks.
“With infectious disease development efforts just emerging, the deals begin to give Marks the tools to expand the company’s pipeline,” BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman said in a note Tuesday, referring to how many of the vaccines are still in early-stage development. he said.
Here’s what you need to know about the deal.
Why vaccines and infectious diseases?
Lilly does not have any vaccines on the market, but historically it helped distribute one of the original polio vaccines.
Lilly’s new deals are still in their early stages, so it will likely take time for them to reach the market. But what they have in common is that they aim to meet unmet needs, whether that’s differentiating themselves from what’s already on the market or introducing what could be the first vaccine for certain viruses.
Curevo, for example, is developing a vaccine against shingles that Lilly hopes could be as effective as the current standard of care but with fewer side effects. BMO’s Seigerman called this vaccine, amesosvatein, the “most clinically advanced” product among the deals and has the potential to improve the tolerability challenges of the current and only shingles vaccine. GSK.
in Curevo Phase 2 trialPatients who received the highest dose of the shingles vaccine reported significantly fewer moderate to severe side effects than patients who received GSK’s Shingrix vaccine; 7.3% compared to 33%. Seigerman said this could help improve uptake and completion rates among patients, as side effects may dissuade some from receiving the second dose of the shingles vaccine.
With the acquisition of Vaccine Company, Lilly also has the potential to bring to market the first vaccine for Epstein-Barr Virus, or EBV, a common viral infection. Although it often does not cause any symptoms, EBV is one of the most common human viruses worldwide and is strongly linked to a wide range of serious conditions, such as certain types of cancer and multiple sclerosis.
Moderna is also developing a vaccine for EBV, but it could take years to reach patients.
Dan Skovronsky, Lilly’s chief scientific and product officer, outlined the clinical case for the new deals in a press release Tuesday.
He said the agreements reflected “a deliberate strategy to prevent the disease at its source rather than treat its consequences.” “Decades of evidence now links common infections to diseases that have the potential to appear years later, including neurological diseases, cancer and infertility.”
How big is the opportunity for Lilly?
The company did not provide any revenue estimates for the products in the deals. We shouldn’t expect any of them to come close to the mega-blockbuster sales potential of Lilly’s obesity drug Zepbound and diabetes treatment Mounjaro.
But there may be meaningful opportunities in these new vaccine products, especially the shingles vaccine. GSK’s Shringrix, for example, generated $4.8 billion in sales in 2025 alone. A more easily tolerated competitor in this area has the chance to take a piece of that market.
It’s less clear what sales of vaccines against EBV might look like. But there are many patients who could definitely benefit: The virus is transmitted to humans Approximately 95% of adults worldwideIt is associated with more than 350,000 new cases of cancer each year, according to the Gavi Vaccine Alliance, a public-private global health partnership.
We’ll be watching to see how these products develop, so stay tuned for our coverage.
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