Merck Teams With Cerevance to Pursue Alzheimer’s Treatments

Merck has inked a multi-year research deal with Cerevance aimed at identifying novel targets for Alzheimer’s disease.

Cerevance will receive an upfront payment of $25 million and is eligible to receive development and commercial milestone payments totaling approximately $1.1 billion.

Merck will gain access to Cerevance’s proprietary sequencing technology that can analyze brain tissue samples to identify biological pathways underlying neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases. The platform can reveal novel therapeutic targets that can be modulated to correct neural circuitry or slow the disease process.

As part of the deal, Cerevance will also license one discovery-stage program to Merck.