Up­dat­ed: Mer­ck buys Prometheus for $10.8B, bring­ing pre­ci­sion can­cer chops to a po­ten­tial IBD block­buster

Mer­ck will buy Prometheus Bio­sciences for $10.8 bil­lion, fu­el­ing a red-hot M&A mar­ket as the on­col­o­gy pow­er­house looks to bring its pre­ci­sion can­cer play­book to im­munol­o­gy.

The buy­out, an­nounced Sun­day, is the lat­est move by Mer­ck to di­ver­si­fy its pipeline be­yond on­col­o­gy, which is dri­ven by its block­buster im­munother­a­py Keytru­da that brought in $20.9 bil­lion in sales last year but is slat­ed to lose patent pro­tec­tion in 2028. Prometheus brings Mer­ck PRA023, an ex­per­i­men­tal in­flam­ma­to­ry bow­el dis­ease drug that Mer­ck lead­ers ex­pect will play a key role in its fu­ture be­yond Keytru­da.

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