MRK vs RAPT

Merck & Company Inc.

Merck & Co., Inc. operates as a healthcare company worldwide. It operates through two segments, Pharmaceutical and Animal Health segments. The Pharmaceutical segment offers human health pharmaceutical products in the areas of oncology, hospital acute care, immunology, neuroscience, virology, cardiovascular, diabetes, and women's health, as well as vaccine products. The Animal Health segment provides discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets a range of veterinary pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and health management solutions and services, as well as a suite of digitally connected identification, traceability, and monitoring products. The company has collaborations with AstraZeneca PLC; Bayer AG; Eisai Co., Ltd.; and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. It serves drug wholesalers and retailers, hospitals, and government agencies; managed health care providers, such as health maintenance organizations, pharmacy benefit managers, and other institutions; and physicians and physician distributors, veterinarians, and animal producers. The company has collaboration agreement with Gilead Sciences, Inc. to co-develop and co-commercialize long-acting investigational treatment combinations of Lenacapavir and Islatravir in HIV; Amathus Therapeutics to develop treatments for neurodegenerative diseases; and Linnaeus Therapeutics, Inc. to evaluate LNS8801 in combination with KEYTRUDA for patients with advanced cancer. It also has a collaboration with Biomed X Gmbh for building on ongoing research projects in the fields of oncology (DNA damage response and RNA splicing) and autoimmunity (intestinal epithelial barrier in autoimmune diseases); and a collaboration agreement with NGM Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. to focus primarily on the development of novel medicines for unmet patient needs in retinal and CVM diseases, including heart failure. Merck & Co., Inc. was founded in 1891 and is headquartered in Kenilworth, New Jersey.

RAPT Therapeutics Inc.

RAPT Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage immunology-based biopharmaceutical company, focuses on discovering, developing, and commercializing oral small molecule therapies for patients with unmet needs in oncology and inflammatory diseases. Its lead oncology drug candidate is FLX475, an oral small molecule C-C motif chemokine receptor 4 antagonist that is in the Phase 1/2 clinical trial to investigate as a monotherapy and in combination with pembrolizumab in patients with advanced cancer. The company's lead inflammation drug candidate is RPT193 to selectively inhibit the migration of type 2 T helper cells into inflamed tissues. It is also pursuing a range of targets, including general control nonderepressible 2 and hematopoietic progenitor kinase 1 that are in the discovery stage of development. The company was formerly known as FLX Bio, Inc. and changed its name to RAPT Therapeutics, Inc. in May 2019. RAPT Therapeutics, Inc. was incorporated in 2015 and is headquartered in South San Francisco, California.