Areas of Interest:

Late-stage clinical

• Must demonstrate clinical benefits (improvements in clinical end points) based on results from a Phase II program
• Clinical data in medium to large market solid tumor indications or hematological malignancies
  • synergies with current portfolio is a plus
• Global or regional deals (US, EU, LA and / or Asia Pacific)

Early-stage – particular interest in preclinical stage assets

• Agents that have a well-defined patient responder ID strategy
  • Signaling pathways
  • DNA damage and repair pathways
  • Select others
• Antibodies that target validated immunomodulatory mechanisms. In vivo POC in preclinical tumor models is a plus. Emphasis on opportunities where there is a lead clinical candidate
• Agents that have significant efficacy in tumors that are resistant to SOC therapy (preclinical POC data or Phase I data in biomarker-selected patient population)
• Bispecific antibodies and antibody drug conjugates for which there is target validation data. Emphasis on bispecifics that target validated immunomodulatory mechanisms

Not Interested in (applies to Early and Late Stage):

• Preventive care
• Personalized immunotherapy / autologous therapies
• Gene therapy
• Diagnosis / devices (stand alone)
• Intratumoral delivery (except for RNAi delivery)
• Radiopharmaceuticals
• Autologous vaccines

Areas of Interest:

• Immunotherapy
  • Tumor models for assessment of antitumor activity of tumor immunotherapy programs
  • Response biomarkers for immunotherapy
• Biomarkers and diagnostics
  • Diagnostic platforms that are ready for clinical application, including imaging tracers, cell-based, blood, nucleic acid, and IVD capabilities with worldwide distribution to support Merck Oncology pipeline programs
  • Pharmacodynamic and response biomarkers for immunomodulatory signaling and DNA damage / checkpoint pathways
  • Minimally invasive platforms for measuring tumor biology: circulating tumor cells, circulating nucleic acids, novel imaging tracers (particularly those in the PI3K pathway or those used to assess apoptosis)
• Other
  • Tumor-targeted delivery systems for systemic administration of RNAi
  • Robust technology that could predict in vitro therapeutic index of combination therapies
  • Platforms that have high predictive value for clinical efficacy (eg, primary tumors passaged in mice)
  • Technology that enables multiplexing of in vivo biomarker / efficacy studies
  • Genome-wide scanning with the ability to measure copy # variation in tumor samples in a CLIA-certified lab
  • Gene expression from FFPET in a CLIA-certified lab
  • Sequencing in a CLIA-certified lab
  • Software tools to correlate genomic data with clinical outcomes for oncology
  • Technology that bridges rodent to human data for immunomodulators