Lilly to Buy Cancer Biotech Kelonia for Up to $7 Billion (2)

Eli Lilly & Co. has agreed to buy Kelonia Therapeutics for as much as $7 billion, gaining access to a potential cutting-edge approach to treating blood cancer.

Kelonia shareholders will receive an initial payment of $3.25 billion in cash, and subsequent payments based on hitting development milestones for the technology, Lilly said in a statement. Kelonia aims to treat patients with a form of blood cancer called multiple myeloma who aren’t responding to treatment or saw their cancer return.

Lilly shares were largely unchanged at 11:15 a.m. in New York. They had declined 14% this year as of Friday’s ...