BRIEF—Merck KGaA exercises option with F-star Therapeutics

Germany’s Merck KGaA has exercised an option to develop an additional bispecific program under an ongoing collaboration with UK-based F-star Therapeutics.

It is the third option to license a pre-clinical program that the firm has exercised, under the terms of a 2019 collaboration.

An undisclosed option exercise payment will be made to F-star, and Merck will pay future success-based milestones and royalties on any net sales.

F-star chief executive Eliot Forster said the collaboration “sits alongside the ongoing development of our four clinical stage next-generation immunotherapies.”