# Emergence Therapeutics

Source: https://onco.cc/companies/emergence-therapeutics/  
OnCo record `emergence-therapeutics` (Company). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Emergence Therapeutics was a German start-up making an antibody that carries a cancer-killing drug to a protein called Nectin-4, which is found on most bladder cancers. Eli Lilly bought the company in 2023.

## Summary

Emergence Therapeutics was a Duisburg, Germany based antibody-drug conjugate developer whose lead candidate, ETx-22, targets Nectin-4, a surface protein overexpressed in most urothelial (bladder) cancers and the target of the approved ADC enfortumab vedotin (Padcev). The company was founded with Heidelberg Pharma as a founding investor. In June 2023 Eli Lilly agreed to acquire all shares of Emergence; terms were not disclosed, although Heidelberg Pharma stated it would receive USD 7 million for its stake. Lilly's third-quarter 2023 results list the acquisition of Emergence as completed in that quarter. The acquisition formed part of Lilly's renewed push into ADCs alongside its Mablink Bioscience purchase later that year. The former company domain now redirects to lilly.com.

## Fields

- Kind: Company
- Last checked: 2026-10-29
- HQ: Duisburg
- Type: biotech
- Website: https://www.lilly.com/

## Notes

- Company website is offline; emergencetx.com redirects to lilly.com, which is what the website field records. Earlier venture financing (reported elsewhere as a Series A in 2022) could not be sourced from a fetched primary page and is omitted. Development stage of ETx-22 at acquisition not stated in the fetched source. Completion in the third quarter of 2023 is taken from Lilly's results release filed with the SEC on 2 November 2023; the exact closing date is not stated there.

## Sources

- Official website: https://www.lilly.com/
- BioPharma Dive: Lilly to acquire Emergence: https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/lilly-acquire-emergence-adc-cancer-drugs/654326/
- Lilly Q3 2023 results listing the completed acquisition (SEC exhibit): https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/59478/000005947823000282/q323lillysalesandearningsp.htm

## Connected records

- collections: [BioPharma Dive](https://onco.cc/collections/src-biopharma-dive/)
- cancers: [Bladder & urothelial cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/urothelial/)
- fronts: [Antibody-Drug Conjugates](https://onco.cc/fronts/adcs/)
- technologies: [Antibody-drug conjugate (ADC)](https://onco.cc/technologies/adc/)
- targets: [Nectin-4](https://onco.cc/targets/nectin4/)
- companies: [Eli Lilly (incl. Loxo)](https://onco.cc/companies/eli-lilly/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/emergence-therapeutics.json