Benzinga | Jan 11, 2022 09:14AM EST

Aligos Therapeutics Expands Collaboration With Merck To Develop Oligonucleotide Therapies For NASH

Aligos Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALGS) a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel therapeutics to address unmet medical needs in viral and liver diseases, today announced that it has expanded its ongoing collaboration agreement with Merck to discover and develop oligonucleotide therapies for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).



"We believe that one of our strengths as a company is our technical know-how in several areas of oligonucleotide research and development," said Lawrence Blatt, Ph.D., MBA, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Aligos. "We are pleased to broaden our collaboration where we may be able to contribute to creating effective, targeted therapies for NASH together with Merck."

Under the original agreement, Merck and Aligos committed to applying Aligos' oligonucleotide platform technology to discover, research, optimize and develop oligonucleotides directed against a certain undisclosed non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) target and up to one additional target of interest in the cardiometabolic/fibrosis space. That agreement has now been expanded to include the in-license by Merck of an early-stage program with respect to a second undisclosed NASH target on which Aligos has previously been working independently and separately from Merck. In addition, under this expanded arrangement, Merck has the ability of adding an additional third target of interest in the cardiometabolic/fibrosis space to the collaboration.

"We are encouraged by the progress made to date in our ongoing collaboration with Aligos and look forward to applying Aligos' technology towards a second target moving forward," said Dr. Ajay Chawla, Vice President, Cardiometabolic Disease Discovery, Merck Research Laboratories.

Under the expanded agreement, Aligos will receive a payment from Merck for the in-license of the program directed at a second undisclosed NASH target. Additionally, Aligos will receive an additional payment upon designation of a third target for the collaboration. With respect to each target in the collaboration, Aligos will be eligible to receive up to ~$460M in development and commercialization milestones as well as tiered royalties on net sales. Aligos is primarily responsible for designing, synthesizing and evaluating the oligonucleotide candidates and delivering optimized lead molecules. Thereafter, Merck is responsible for subsequent research, clinical development and commercialization.