Mer­ck­'s Roger Perl­mut­ter con­tin­ues spin­ning deals, putting up $1B+ for Janux Ther­a­peu­tics and its T cell en­gagers

Even as his tenure at Mer­ck comes to a close, Roger Perl­mut­ter isn’t fin­ished wheel­ing and deal­ing just yet.

Less than a month af­ter bet­ting big on On­coIm­mune’s ex­per­i­men­tal Covid-19 drug in a $425 mil­lion buy­out, Mer­ck an­nounced Fri­day morn­ing that it’s plunk­ing down $1 bil­lion-plus to col­lab­o­rate with small San Diego biotech Janux Ther­a­peu­tics on T cell en­gagers. The pair will team up on two can­cer tar­gets se­lect­ed by Mer­ck, with Janux el­i­gi­ble for up to $500.5 mil­lion in up­front and mile­stone pay­ments per tar­get.

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