Market Insight - Scouting around at Merck
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
In the past six months, Merck & Cohas signed at least seven external licensing deals with a variety of companies to gain access to cutting-edge research and clinical candidates. The deals cover a broad spectrum: for example, Merck licensed out two preclinical cancer targets in a risk-sharing deal with Nicholas Piramal of India and it is collaborating with Celera to gain access to cancer targets discovered by the US firm's proteomics technology. It also signed a potential $700 million deal with Addex Pharmaceuticals to gain exclusive rights to the Swiss firm's preclinical schizophrenia candidate ADX63365.