Jury awards Nektar $90 million in damages after lawsuit over broken rezpeg partnership with Eli Lilly

A jury in a US court has ordered Eli Lilly to pay Nektar Therapeutics $90 million after finding the pharma giant breached their collaboration on the experimental autoimmune drug rezpeg.

Nektar and Lilly began working together in 2017 to develop rezpeg, a regulatory T cell agonist intended for conditions such as eczema. The partnership ended in 2020 when Lilly acquired Dermira, a company with a competing skin disease program, and subsequently terminated its involvement in rezpeg.

Nektar sued, alleging that Lilly "botched" the analysis of early stage trial data and deliberately undermined the program. The biotech sought $1 billion in damages; the jury awarded $90 million, far below the amount requested.

The verdict underscores the financial risks of partnership disputes in biotech and may influence how large pharma companies structure future collaborations. It does not affect the ongoing development of rezpeg, which Nektar now controls alone.