Mer­ck KGaA splurges $230M on its pipeline, pay­ing Ver­tex for a slate of ear­ly-stage can­cer drugs

With its Big Phar­ma part­ner Pfiz­er in hot pur­suit of an ap­proval for their check­point in­hibitor, the dis­as­ter-prone Mer­ck KGaA is splurg­ing on a new deal with Ver­tex $VRTX that will beef up its on­col­o­gy pipeline. The Ger­man com­pa­ny is spend­ing $230 mil­lion up­front to li­cense rights to two clin­i­cal-stage and two pre­clin­i­cal pro­grams from the Boston biotech, con­vinced that they’re start­ing down path­ways on DNA re­pair and im­muno-on­col­o­gy that will lead them to a new prod­uct or two.

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