The I/O 2.0-com­bo tech race is on: Mer­ck bags on­colyt­ics play­er Vi­r­a­lyt­ics in $394M buy­out

Last spring the small Aus­tralian biotech Vi­r­a­lyt­ics made a big splash at the an­nu­al AACR meet­ing, turn­ing up in the show­case spot with an in­trigu­ing snap­shot of the pos­i­tive da­ta their on­colyt­ics ther­a­py Ca­vatak was reg­is­ter­ing in the clin­ic.

This morn­ing Mer­ck $MRK — al­ready loose­ly al­lied in a sup­ply deal with Vi­r­a­lyt­ics for their PD-1 star Keytru­da — fol­lowed up by gob­bling the whole com­pa­ny, bag­ging the biotech in a $394 mil­lion buy­out as the lead­ers in the check­point race branch out with new deals for com­bi­na­tion ap­proach­es.

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