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Sept 5 (Reuters) - U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly ( LLY ) has

signed a research deal with privately held AI-focused firm

Genetic Leap to develop genetic medicines, the latter said on

Thursday.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

Major drugmakers have been experimenting with artificial

intelligence to discover new drugs, find patients for clinical

trials and reduce the number of people needed to test medicines.

Lilly signed a partnership with AI startup OpenAI in June

to develop antimicrobials that can be used to treat

drug-resistant bacteria.

French drugmaker Sanofi also said in May it would

collaborate with OpenAI to develop AI models for its drug

development projects.

CONTEXT

The deal would give Lilly access to Genetic Leap's

proprietary AI platform to develop RNA-based medicines.

Genetic medicines, which target the genetic cause of a

disease, make up more than 25% of drug candidates being

developed at Lilly, the drugmaker's website showed.

Dozens of biotechnology companies are looking for ways to

manipulate RNA, a genetic messenger, to block genes that produce

disease-causing proteins.

BY THE NUMBERS

As part of the deal, Genetic Leap would receive upfront and

milestone payments of up to $409 million, as well as tiered

royalties.