Lilly to Buy Ajax for Up to $2.3 Billion in Cancer-Drug Push

Eli Lilly & Co. agreed to buy closely held Ajax Therapeutics Inc. for as much as $2.3 billion in cash, part of its effort to build out a portfolio of breakthrough cancer therapies.

Ajax’s lead medicine is a once-daily pill in the early stages of study for myelofibrosis, a rare type of blood cancer that causes scarring in the bone marrow. Key data on the drug are due later this year.