Eli Lilly agreed to acquire Merida Biosciences in a deal valued at up to about $2.875 billion, extending Lilly’s push to diversify beyond obesity. Merida’s lead program, MER511, is a precision degradation approach designed to selectively eliminate pathogenic anti-TSHR autoantibodies in Graves’ disease and thyroid eye disease. Lilly’s acquisition adds a Phase I development program under the NEXUS trial (NCT07305818), with endpoints focused on initial safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and immunogenicity. The deal also includes a preclinical antibody-directed degradation program aimed at allergic disease-driving autoantibodies, reinforcing Lilly’s strategy to expand in mechanistically targeted immunology.