Merck pens mega licensing deal with Kelun-Biotech

22 December 2022

While the vast majority of M&A deals announced so far this year are in the hundreds of million dollars, licensing agreements have been getting ever bigger.

Just last week, Takeda (TYO: 4502) punted a record upfront of $4 billion, plus $2 billion in milestone, on an accord with Nimbus; today US pharma giant Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK) is going even further.

Merck says it has entered into an exclusive license and collaboration agreement with Kelun-Biotech, a holding subsidiary of Sichuan Kelun Pharmaceutical (SHE: 002422), to develop seven investigational pre-clinical antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) for the treatment of cancer. Sichuan Kelun shares dipped nearly 2% on the news

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