Hunt­ing deals on all fronts, Mer­ck en­lists drug dis­cov­ery biotech on search for pro­tein mod­u­la­tors

At a re­cent quar­ter­ly in­vestor call, Mer­ck CEO Rob Davis hint­ed at a streak of deals to come as he promised to be “ap­pro­pri­ate­ly ag­gres­sive” in pur­su­ing ex­ter­nal in­no­va­tion.

“While we have a strong track record of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment, we know we need to do more,” he said.

Mer­ck’s lat­est move comes in the form of a new col­lab­o­ra­tion with a Southamp­ton, Eng­land-based biotech called Curve Ther­a­peu­tics. Worth up to $1.7 bil­lion — in­clud­ing an undis­closed up­front and re­search, de­vel­op­ment plus com­mer­cial mile­stones — the deal tasks Curve with dis­cov­er­ing and val­i­dat­ing mod­u­la­tors of up to five ther­a­peu­tic tar­gets.

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