In new post-Mer­ck role, Roger Perl­mut­ter rakes in half a bil­lion dol­lars to change the way sci­en­tists look at pro­teins

Roger Perl­mut­ter hasn’t wast­ed any time since an­nounc­ing his sup­posed re­tire­ment from Mer­ck in Oc­to­ber 2020. Af­ter leav­ing his perch as one of the most suc­cess­ful R&D chiefs in Big Phar­ma, he’s now snatch­ing a cool half-bil­lion dol­lars to de­vel­op “a bat­tery of in­no­v­a­tive tools” for drug dis­cov­ery at the young start­up Eikon Ther­a­peu­tics.

Eikon closed on a $517.8 mil­lion Se­ries B round on Thurs­day morn­ing, bring­ing the Hay­ward, CA-based com­pa­ny’s to­tal raise to more than $668 mil­lion.

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