Pharma powerhouse and mRNA therapy juggernaut Moderna announced this week that Merck & Co. (MSD) will be paying $250 million to collaborate in developing and commercializing a personalized cancer vaccine (PCV).
The two companies have been working together for several years now, under an agreement that was first established in 2016 and amended in 2018. Now Merck is seeking to expand the partnership and exercise its right to commercialize (PCV) mRNA-4157/V940, which is currently being studied in evaluation with Merck's top seller, Keytruda, as a combination treatment for patients with high-risk melanoma.
mRNA-4157/V940 is designed to target uniquely expressed antigens that are identified from patients’ tumor cells, allowing the individualized treatment to stimulate an immune reaction by generating T-cell responses based on specific mutational signatures.
Following the announcement of the collaboration expansion, Merck’s shares rose to 90.65 a share or roughly 3% in the past five days.