MKGAY - Germany's Merck teams up with Artios Pharma to develop precision cancer drugs

Merck KGaA (MKGAY) inks a three-year collaboration agreement with British biopharma outfit Artios Pharma Limited aimed at developing precision oncology drugs.The partnership will leverage the latter's proprietary nuclease-targeting discovery platform with Merck's knowhow and resources in DNA damage response ((DDR)), a network of cellular pathways that sense, signal and repair DNA lesions preventing the generation of potentially deleterious mutations (the most prevalent environmental DNA-damaging agent in ultraviolet light).Merck will have exclusive global rights to develop and commercialize selected therapeutics discovered under the collaboration.Merck will pay Artios $30M in upfront and near-term payments, double-digit option fees on selected candidates, up to $860M in milestones per target and double-digit royalties on net sales.

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Germany's Merck teams up with Artios Pharma to develop precision cancer drugs