Merck & Co in $187 million deal with Zymeworks to develop bi-specific antibody therapeutics; returns rights for PD drug to Addex

Privately-held Canadian biotech firm Zymeworks and entered a research collaboration with US drug giant Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK) around Zymeworks’ proprietary Azymetric platform for the development of novel bi-specific antibody therapeutic candidates.

Zymeworks will receive an upfront fee and is eligible to receive research, development and regulatory milestones with a potential value of up to $187 million, as well as tiered royalty payments on sales of products. Merck will have exclusive worldwide commercialization rights to products derived from the collaboration. The companies will together advance the technology platform, with Merck working to progress the bi-specific therapeutic antibody candidates through clinical development.

“We are delighted to establish a strategic collaboration with the exceptional biologics team at Merck to advance our revolutionary bi-specific antibody platform,” said Ali Tehrani, chief executive of Zymeworks, adding: “This is an important validation of our scientific leadership in the field of structure-guided protein engineering and we look forward to working with Merck to realizing the full value of this novel platform technology across a range of therapeutic indications.”