Newcomer Mereo can play in the big leagues, say analysts

The rise of UK-based Mereo BioPharma (AIM: MPH) has been extraordinary, even by the standards of the increasingly dynamic life sciences industry.

Starting with its Novartis (NOVN: VX) collaboration in 2015, the company has gone from nought to sixty in a couple of short years, pursuing an audacious, some say risky, strategy of purchasing Phase II candidates from major pharmaceutical companies and, it hopes, taking them through to commercialization alone.

Unusually, Mereo has opted to purchase both assets and property rights, leaving some to speculate that the larger, more informed player has taken the opportunity to offload less promising parts of its pipeline.