MRK vs XCUR

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.

Exicure Inc.

Exicure, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company, develops therapeutics for neurology, immuno-oncology, inflammatory diseases, and genetic disorders based on its proprietary spherical nucleic acid (SNA) technology. Its drug candidate includes cavrotolimod (AST-008) that is in a Phase 1b/2 clinical trials in patients with advanced solid tumors. The company is also developing XCUR-FXN, an SNA–based therapeutic candidate that is in preclinical trials for the treatment of Friedreich's ataxia; XCUR17, an SNA that targets the messenger RNA (mRNA) encoding interleukin 17 receptor alpha; and AST-005, an SNA targeting TNF for the treatment of mild to moderate psoriasis. It has a collaboration, option, and license agreement with Allergan Pharmaceuticals International Limited to develop SNA-based treatments for hair loss disorders; license and development agreement with DERMELIX, LLC to research, develop, and commercialize its technology for the treatment of netherton syndrome; and collaboration agreement with Ipsen S.A. to research, develop, and commercialize novel spherical nucleic acids for Huntington's disease and Angelman syndrome. The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.