Lilly to consider more acquisitions like $1.6 billion Armo buy

(Reuters) - Eli Lilly and Co (NYSE: LLY) will consider more acquisitions similar to its $1.6 billion purchase of cancer drug developer Armo Biosciences earlier this year, the drugmaker's chief financial officer said on Tuesday.

The remarks come as Lilly gains access to fresh capital after it took its Elanco animal health unit public in September.

"We got a little bit less than $4 billion in the third quarter as a function of the first step of our Elanco divestiture and we'll put that money (to use) against our capital priorities," Lilly's Chief Financial Officer Joshua Smiley said in an interview.

"The Armo deal that we did earlier this year, we'll look to do more of those," Smiley said, but added that mergers with big drug companies were unlikely to be an important tool to grow in the future.

In May Lilly said it would buy Armo Biosciences Inc to expand its portfolio of drugs that helps the body's immune system fight cancer, a move that could pit the company against several rivals in a lucrative market.

Separately on Tuesday, Lilly reported a better-than-expected third-quarter profit and raised its earnings forecast for 2018.

(Reporting by Tamara Mathias in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar)

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