Merck (known as MSD outside the US and Canada) has agreed on a multi-year research collaboration with Quotient Therapeutics in a deal that could be worth up to $2.2bn.
Through the collaboration, the companies will work to discover novel drug targets in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) using Quotient’s somatic genomics platform technology.
Under the agreement, Quotient (a Flagship Pioneering company) will receive an upfront payment of $20m, with the company also being eligible for payments of up to $2.2bn through development, regulatory and commercial milestones.
Marc Levesque, VP, Discovery at Merck Research Laboratories, said: “Quotient’s platform has the potential to provide us with unique biological insights into genomic changes that are naturally occurring within patients with IBD.
“Millions of people globally are living with this disease, and no disease-modifying treatments are currently available.”
Quotient uses natural somatic genomics and computational technologies to develop first-in-class therapies centred around the natural somatic genetic diversity present in patients.
People naturally accumulate somatic genetic mutations during their lives, resulting in each person having trillions of different genomes. Quotient’s platform searches patient tissue for mutations within the context of disease, to find those that cause, or protect from, specific diseases.
Data from the searches can be used to investigate new therapies for IBD and other diseases.
Rahul Kakkar, President and CEO of Quotient, said: “The combination of Merck’s deep drug development and global commercial expertise with our unbiased, disease- and modality-agnostic somatic genomics platform could redefine how IBD is understood and treated.”