Boehringer Ingelheim’s busy year of dealmaking is showing no signs of slowing, with the German pharma now turning to established partner CDR-Life for a new trispecific autoimmune antibody.
In return for global rights to develop the preclinical antibody, Swiss biotech CDR-Life will receive $48 million in upfront and near-term payments, the partners announced in a Nov. 4 release. In total, CDR-Life can earn about $570 million in payments, on top of royalties on any future sales.
Boehringer has its eyes on CDR111, a trispecific T-cell engager that pits T cells against the rogue B cells that cause numerous autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and lupus.
“We are excited to expand upon our work with CDR-Life and apply their trispecific M-gager approach to autoimmune and inflammatory diseases with high unmet need, further broadening our differentiated pipeline,” Carine Boustany, Boehringer’s U.S. innovation unit site head and global head of immunology and respiratory diseases, said in the release. “We see strong potential for CDR111 to demonstrate a deep and durable immune reset that may deliver transformative options for patients living with serious autoimmune disease.
CDR-Life uses its M-gager platform to design antibodies it says are safe, stable and highly specific for their targets. The biotech's wholly owned pipeline focuses on cancer, including a bispecific T-cell engager currently being tested in a phase 1 trial in patients with advanced tumors.
Boehringer first linked up with CDR-Life in 2020 to develop antibody fragments for geographic atrophy (GA), an advanced retinal disease. That collaboration led to BI 771716, which is currently being tested in a phase 2 GA trial set to wrap up in October 2026.
Boehringer has been steadily making inroads into the eye disease world in recent years. In 2022, the pharma snagged a preclinical retinal disease antibody from Surrozen in a $600 million deal, and, in 2023, tapped RetinAI for imaging data assistance in its GA drug development efforts.
In a July 2025 conversation with Fierce, Chief Medical Officer Lykke Hinsch Gylvin, M.D., called this ophthalmology work “fairly new for Boehringer” but said it had already been “recognized by clinicians as something to look out for.”
Just days after that interview, Boehringer penned a $1 billion pact with Re-Vana Therapeutics for new eye injection tech, with a $327 million deal for retinal disease antibodies from Palatin Therapeutics to follow the next month.
But Boehringer has been busy in other disease areas, too, including autoimmune. Just last week, the company announced a 640 million euro ($743 million) deal with Kyowa Kirin for a mysterious preclinical autoimmune asset. And the German giant bought into B-cell depletion in April as well, licensing a next-gen preclinical program from Cue Biopharma for $12 million upfront.