Biocytogen Expands Partnership with Merck

BEIJING & DARMSTADT, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Biocytogen Pharmaceuticals (Beijing) Co., Ltd. ("Biocytogen") entered into a global licensing agreement with Merck for the use of Biocytogen’s RenMice^™ platform. Under the terms of the agreement, Merck will have full access to Biocytogen’s RenMice^™ platform to discover and develop fully human antibody therapeutics for an unlimited number of drug targets. Merck will be responsible for all clinical development, manufacturing, and commercialization, and will provide Biocytogen with development and regulatory milestone payments. The official agreement was reached after an initial evaluation period.

Dr. Yuelei Shen, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Biocytogen, said, “This agreement provides Merck with one of the most advanced fully human antibody discovery platforms. We are pleased that Merck recognized the potential of our RenMice™ platform to accelerate antibody development for novel and challenging targets.”

About Biocytogen

Biocytogen Pharmaceuticals (Beijing) Co., Ltd. is a global biotechnology company that drives the research and development of novel antibody-based therapeutics. The company has streamlined the drug development process through the use of RenMice^™ for fully human antibody discovery, in vivo drug efficacy screening platforms and strong clinical development expertise. Biocytogen’s RenMice^™ HiTS Platform aims to develop novel antibody drugs with first-in-class and/or best-in-class potential for more than 1000 targets, and has resulted in collaborations with dozens of partners worldwide. The company's pipeline includes 12 core products; two products are in phase II MRCTs and two products are in phase I. Headquartered in Beijing, Biocytogen has branches in Haimen Jiangsu, Shanghai, Boston, USA and Heidelberg, Germany. For more information, visit www.biocytogen.com.

About Merck

Merck, a leading science and technology company, operates across healthcare, life science and electronics. Around 60,000 employees work to make a positive difference to millions of people’s lives every day by creating more joyful and sustainable ways to live. From advancing gene editing technologies and discovering unique ways to treat the most challenging diseases to enabling the intelligence of devices – the company is everywhere. In 2021, Merck generated sales of € 19.7 billion in 66 countries.

Scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to Merck’s technological and scientific advances. This is how Merck has thrived since its founding in 1668. The founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company. Merck holds the global rights to the Merck name and brand. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck operate as EMD Serono in healthcare, MilliporeSigma in life science, and EMD Electronics.