Merck and Aligos expand NASH + oligo collaboration

US clinical-stage biopharma firm Aligos Therapeutics (Nasdaq: ALGS) closed up 6.4% at $3.97 yesterday, having hit a high of $4.14, after it announced an expansion of its ongoing collaboration agreement with Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK) to discover and develop oligonucleotide therapies for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).

“We believe that one of our strengths as a company is our technical know-how in several areas of oligonucleotide research and development,” said Lawrence Blatt, chairman and chief executive of Aligos, adding: “We are pleased to broaden our collaboration where we may be able to contribute to creating effective, targeted therapies for NASH together with Merck.”

Under the original agreement, Merck and Aligos committed to applying Aligos’ oligonucleotide platform technology to discover, research, optimize and develop oligonucleotides directed against a certain undisclosed non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) target and up to one additional target of interest in the cardiometabolic/fibrosis space. That agreement has now been expanded to include Aon, on which Aligos has previously been working independently and separately from Merck. In addition, under this expanded arrangement, Merck has the ability of adding an additional third target of interest in the cardiometabolic/fibrosis space to the collaboration.