Eli Lilly and Company (LLY) entered a merger agreement on October 24, 2025, to acquire Adverum Biotechnologies, Inc. (ADVM) in a deal valued at $117.12 million.
Lilly will commence a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Adverum common stock for a per share price of $3.56 per share in cash payable at closing, plus one non-transferrable contingent value right (CVR) that entitles the holder to receive up to an additional $8.91 per CVR in cash upon the achievement of two milestones.
The CVR provides payments if and when the following milestones are achieved:
The cash price of $3.56 is at a discount of 14.83% from the stock’s last close.
Adverum is a clinical-stage gene therapy company developing one-time, intravitreal treatments to restore vision and reduce the burden of chronic eye diseases such as wet age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema.
Eli Lilly is a global pharmaceutical company that discovers and develops innovative medicines to improve lives, focusing on areas such as diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and immune disorders.
Through this deal, Lilly will acquire Adverum’s lead product candidate, Ixo-vec.
Ixo-vec is a new gene therapy being developed to treat wet age-related macular degeneration (wAMD), a serious eye disease that can cause vision loss in older adults. It is given as a one-time injection into the eye and is designed to continuously produce aflibercept, a medicine that helps protect vision. This could reduce the need for frequent eye injections and may lead to better long-term vision.
The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2025.
As part of the deal, Adverum signed a Promissory Note with Lilly. This agreement allows Adverum to borrow up to $65 million from Lilly in four installments. The loan is secured by all of Adverum’s assets, including its intellectual property. The money will help fund Adverum’s ongoing Ixo-vec clinical trials and other development work until the deal is completed.
If the deal is canceled, Lilly’s funding stops, and the loan must be repaid right away. Without this loan from Lilly, Adverum’s remaining cash would only be enough to cover its operations and shutdown costs through October 2025.
Financial advisory services for Adverum were provided by Aquilo Partners, with Cooley serving as legal counsel. For Eli Lilly, Ropes & Gray acted as its legal counsel.
For more in-depth details on this M&A transaction, please visit the Deal Metrics page here:
The Deal Metrics page for each merger or acquisition includes:
– A spread history chart of the merger from announcement through eventual completion or failure.
– Every event as the merger progresses through the expiration of the HSR period, various regulatory approvals, shareholder votes, etc.
– News and SEC filings.
– A history of deal updates.
– And a whole lot more.
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Editor’s Note: Baranjot Kaur contributed to this article