Dean Li kicks off Mer­ck­'s post-Roger Perl­mut­ter era by team­ing with Arti­va and its off-the-shelf CAR-NK tech

Even though Dean Li has now of­fi­cial­ly tak­en over for Roger Perl­mut­ter as R&D chief, Mer­ck’s ap­petite for deal­mak­ing con­tin­ues to be rav­en­ous.

Li struck his first big deal at the helm Thurs­day morn­ing, ham­mer­ing out a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Arti­va Bio­ther­a­peu­tics that could earn the biotech near­ly $1.9 bil­lion when all is said and done. It’s a quick rise and val­i­da­tion for Arti­va, which just last June launched with a $78 mil­lion Se­ries A.

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