Merck Dives Further Into Cytokine Research With Synthekine Deal

Synthekine Inc has entered a worldwide research collaboration and license agreement with Merck & Co Inc (NYSE:MRK).
The big pharma has agreed to co-develop two new cytokine-based therapies by leveraging Synthekine’s proprietary surrogate cytokine agonist platform.
Although the deal doesn’t appear to offer much upfront, the partners didn’t disclose Merck’s initial payment, and it comes with $525 million in milestones per target.
Merck will provide research funding to Synthekine for programs under the collaboration.
The new deal will also focus first on autoimmunity.
Price Action: MRK shares are down 0.12% at $87.94 during the market session on the last check Monday.