INDIANAPOLIS—Privately held drug development company Marcadia Biotech announced a strategic collaboration with Merck & Co. to jointly discover, develop and commercialize novel biopharmaceutical therapies targeting the glucagon and related receptors for the treatment of diabetes and obesity.

 

"Marcadia has generated a unique collection of peptide drug candidates with potentially novel therapeutic attributes," says Luciano Rossetti, M.D., senior vice president and franchise head, Diabetes/Obesity and Cardiovascular at Merck Research Laboratories.

 

"This latest collaboration underscores our strategy to establish a robust early-stage pipeline that delivers superior diabetes and obesity therapies."

 

Certain of the Marcadia intellectual property subject to the Merck collaboration was licensed from the Indiana University Research and Technology Corp., and the company sponsors ongoing discovery research at the Indiana University Chemistry Department in Bloomington, Ind., in the therapeutic area of metabolic diseases.

 

Under the terms of the agreement Merck will pay Marcadia an initial upfront fee as well as payments for exclusivity and ongoing collaborative research. Marcadia will also be eligible to receive future milestone and royalty payments associated with research, development and commercialization of certain drug candidates. Merck has obtained a worldwide exclusive license to certain Marcadia development candidates and intellectual property. Marcadia will also have the right to exercise options for profit and cost sharing and co-promotion in the United States. Additional terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

 

"Merck is a world leader in the discovery of breakthrough medicines and has proven expertise in the development and commercialization of drugs that treat metabolic diseases," says Fritz French, CEO of Marcadia. "We are excited about the opportunity to significantly leverage the research we have accomplished to date through this collaboration with Merck."