Prelude signs a new partnership with pharma giant Merck

August 1, 2024 17

Prelude Therapeutics has now signed its second deal in two years, and this time, it’s with $60 billion pharmaceutical company Merck. | DBT PHOTO BY KATIE TABELING

WILMINGTON — Prelude Therapeutics has marked another landmark in its company’s history: its second partnership with pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co.

The agreement with the $60 billion multinational company aims to evaluate Prelude’s leading cancer drug treatment, particularly in how it interacts with Merck’s blockbuster immunotherapy drug. Terms of the study have not been disclosed, however, Prelude officials predict it will reveal more details once the company has concluded its first phase of the trial on the drug this year.

Partnerships between drug development companies are common, as are some companies with limited financial runway, as it shares the costs and the potential financial gains when discovering new treatments.

Both Prelude and Merck will retain the commercial rights to the drugs involved in the study, but Prelude Chief Medical Officer Jane Huang noted that it has the chance to find positive outcomes for those with rare cancers and diseases.

“Through this collaboration of potentially complementary mechanisms, we may have the potential to positively impact clinical outcomes in patients harboring a SMARCA4 mutation, who have previously been known to have limited treatment options,” Huang said in a prepared statement.

This program builds on top of studies of Prelude’s small-molecule drugs intended to treat cancers connected to the SMARCA2 gene, which commonly includes head and neck cancers. In particular, the drug candidate PRT3789 is a first-in-class, highly selective degrader of SMARCA2 protein which, along with SMARCA4, controls gene regulation through chromatin remodeling.

Prelude has reported that up to 70,000 cancer patients in the United States and European Union who currently have limited treatment options could benefit from the drug.

PRT3789 is already the subject of a partnership between Prelude and AbCellera, but that agreement focuses on developing new compounds for precision antibody drug conjugates — or targeted medicines that can deliver drugs to cancer cells without damaging healthy cells.

Meanwhile, Merck is seeking ways to combine treatments with Keytruda, a drug that works to block proteins from binding with cancerous cells. Keytruda is one of Merck’s most recent successes and is expected to generate $25 billion in sales for the company alone.

However, Keytruda’s patent is due to expire by 2030 and Merck is looking to launch the drug with other treatments to help soften the blow.

Earlier this year, Merck was reported to be in studies with Moderna on the RNA-based vaccines with Keytruda to see possible treatment options for melanoma.