Eli Lilly agreed to acquire San Diego‑based Ventyx Biosciences for roughly $1.2 billion in cash, buying a mid‑stage oral NLRP3 inhibitor program the buyer calls strategically complementary to its inflammation and metabolic portfolio. Lilly framed the deal as an acceleration of its plans in cardiometabolic, neurodegenerative and autoimmune disease, where NLRP3 antagonists aim to block a key inflammasome pathway. Ventyx’s lead candidate demonstrated biomarker and clinical signals across cardiometabolic and neuroinflammatory indications, prompting Lilly to pay a 62% premium to Ventyx’s 30‑day trading average. Lilly said it expects the transaction to close in the first half of 2026, subject to customary approvals and shareholder consent. The deal bolsters Lilly’s oral small‑molecule footprint at a time when Big Pharma is hunting differentiated anti‑inflammatory assets. The acquisition follows market murmurs and near‑term analyst attention on NLRP3 as a multi‑indication target. Ventyx management and investors framed the sale as a route to scale the programs rapidly within a large pharma infrastructure, while Lilly emphasized potential application across persistent inflammation‑driven disease states where oral agents could compete with injectables.