Pharma BD Deal Intelligence
On June 16, 2026, Merck & Co. and Protillion Biosciences announced a drug-discovery collaboration. Protillion is eligible for an undisclosed upfront payment plus up to $510 million in research, development, and commercial milestones. The collaboration applies Protillion's Prot-MaP (Protein Display on a Massively Parallel Array) platform — which can test up to ~1 million protein variants in a single experiment to generate training data for AI-driven protein/biologics design — alongside Merck's drug-discovery capabilities. Initial programs target inflammatory diseases, with potential expansion to additional therapeutic areas.